Friends of the Old Kenya
Friends of the Old Kenya
Friends of the Old (FOTO) is a humanitarian Community-Based Organization that became operational in 2009.
The world largely ignores the chronic epidemic of waterborne diseases, that World Health Organization estimates daily cause more than 4,600,000 episodes of diarrhea and more than 2,000 deaths among a billion people living in extreme poverty worldwide.
Unlike the big three - HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB, waterborne diseases are not hard to prevent: kill the germs with heat (pasteurization) or chlorine and people don't get sick.
A unique approach to eliminate waterborne diseases has been incorporated in the FOTO Project in Lower Nyakach, where 70,000 plus people have no access to safe drinking watr sources, and they have to use heavily contaminated rivers, streams, ponds and shallow wells.
A key component of FOTO's unique approach is to enable the FOTO staff to perform and interpret the most widely used test for E. Coli from the water and the food industries. After overnight incubation, the early interpreted results place the sample in one of four WHO Risk categories; low, moderate, high or very high. The test demystifies microbiology at the community level and replaces dangerous myths about water safety and disease transmission with science.
FOTO Staff with solar cooked foods
FOTO Staff water testing with petrifilms
2019 IDEXX Water Humanitarian Award
Beneficiary of reading glasses testing a pair
Seline Teaching Water Testing to school children
Residents delighted to recieve Aquaguard for water treatment
A beneficiary of certified seeds with his healthy crop
Tailoring Training for sponsored school girls
ICT training for sponsored school girls
In 2010, the UN General Assembly and the Kenya Constitution declared safe drinking water a basic human right.
"Every person has the right to clean and safe water in adequate quantities"
- The Constitution of Kenya 2010, Chapter 4: the Bill of Rights Part 2- Rights and Fundamentals Freedoms 43
FOTO is working in the community to accomplish this, and hopes that the success story can be replicated in other parts of the country and elsewhere.
The goal is zero: a strategy to eliminate waterborne disease from lower Nyakach.
Prof. Robert and Dr. MaryBeth Metcalf and IWHA
Through his microbiology expertise and International Water and Health Alliances (IWHA), an NGO he co-founded, Prof. Robert Metcalf is able to financially support FOTO in establishing a replicable strategy to eliminate waterborne diseases in Lower Nyakach. Since 2012, through IWHA, Prof. Metcalf is providing funds to FOTO for a monthly distribution on 9,320 Aquaguard chlorine bottles to all households and schools. His pioneering research in heating water to 65 degrees Celsius is extremely effective in eliminating harmful microbes. FOTO received the Water Humanitarian award in December 2020, from IDEXX a company that manufactures colilerts used in this unique strategy. At IWHA, the third development Congress in NBO, our Director Dinah Chienjo and Robert Metcalf presented a talk on FOTO's work titled "The Goal is Zero."
FOTO's Village Access Facilitators and Village Enterprise Personnel regularly test sources of drinking water in Lower Nyakach for contamination using Colilert and Petrifilm Tests, and sensitize the public on findings.
FOTO distributes Waterguard to residents to help them treat their drinking water, making it safe for consumption.
FOTO distributes free certified seeds to farmers in Lower Nyakach. This donor-funded initiative enhances their food security through increased crop yields.
Selected girls from vulnerable grandparent families in Lower Nyakach are able to receive secondary school education through the generosity of FOTO's donors, Prof. Robert and Dr. MaryBeth Metcalf and IWHA. Over 160 girls have directly benefited from this program. During school holidays, the girls are trained on life skills that include ICT, dressmaking and design, basket weaving, food preparation using the solar cooker as well as agribusiness. This financial support has been key in achieving the transformative success of the girls' lives.
Friends of the Old distributes reading glasses to senior citizens of Lower Nyakach every month. Elders appreciate recovering their ability to read from their mobile phones, Bibles, newspapers and other literature.
Friends of the Old promotes solar cooking and use of fireless cookers to the people of Lower Nyakach as an energy-efficient, affordable and environmentally sustainable alternative to the use of firewood. This lightens women's duties and frees up their time.
Dinah Chienjo
Joseph Abende