TURKANA DIARY 4 - Water first

Children with water barrels
When I saw the conditions the people of Turkana live in, I immediately questioned why more had not been done to change their life for the better. Why couldn't we build similar infrastructure to the one we have in the western world? To start with, we could build solid homes with running water, toilets, kitchen, beds. Then services like hospitals and schools and infrastructure like roads, electricity systems, petrol stations. Surely the western world should be able to do this within reasonable costs and transform the life of the people of Turkana for the better very quickly.
Then I realised that it's not that simple.
There are three issues that makes this difficult: cost, politics and culture.
The region of Turkana is vast, almost the size of Ireland, and inhospitable. Building infrastructure like water pipes, electricity distribution systems, hospitals, roads, schools in such a way that the area is appropriately covered requires a substantial investment to build and maintain. This could either be obtained through international aid or internal political will: that's where the second issue kicks in. The Kenyan government has little interest in investing in Turkana, were relatively few people live. Most don't even vote. The area does not have many natural resources, nor does it attract much business interest. The cost compared to the benefit is too high. Hence, due to the high level of corruption and the lack of political incentive, Turkana is left behind and is virtually abandoned by the government.
Finally, there is an important cultural aspect to consider. The people of Turkana are traditionally nomadic. They have learnt to survive by farming animals, and they don't know any other way of life. It would be wrong for us to unilaterally change that, and it wouldn't work. But we can, and we should, offer them options to improve their life and let them choose what changes to embrace. They must own their destiny, and we can facilitate progress. By far the best way to do this is by offering education to children, so that they can choose for themselves the life they want to lead. At the same time, we can help them improve the way they address their basic needs, facilitating easier access to water, food and health, as well as offering training to learn new skills they can use to earn a living.
I then learned, and I could see with my eyes, that over the last 15 years, through the work of the mission, life and economy in some parts of Turkana had improved slowly but significantly. Access to drinking water was by far the most important issue to address. The work of the mission, with support from other NGOs, has had a key role in improving access to drinking water. All over Turkana, there are now over two hundred boreholes and water points. It's never enough and, given the size of the territory, people still need to walk to the nearest water point to fetch water, but it has made those journeys shorter and, in some cases, possible. This has not been a small investment: at the cost of £10k per borehole, over £2m has been spent to dig these boreholes and all this money has been collected through donations and international aid. The government provides no funding, nor has political interest, in looking after these more vulnerable and marginalised tribes.
LINKS
To sponsor a Turkana child, please visit: Children Sponsorship Programme
To contribute to Manlio's trip crowdfunding, please visit: Manlio for Turkana
To support New Ways, see: Fundraising - New Ways
Read all the Turkana Diary stories here: www.indcatholicnews.com/search/TURKANA%20DIARY