Earth Day and clean water for the community in Kitui

Happy Earth Day! Today, on 22nd April, we’re reminded of the importance and the power of coming together to protect the planet…and the people at the sharp end of the climate crisis.

This time last year (and 3 years before) we were asking for your support to enable us to offer emergency rice packages for students to take home to their families each week during the drought season. Through the generosity of our supporters, The Friday Rice Project has sustained students and families through seemingly impossible periods of drought and food insecurity. 

At Seed of Hope, our aim is to enable students to achieve self-reliance. These are ambitious and capable young people who are working to overcome challenges that lead to instability and insecurity. Through our programmes, we’re able to support them to reduce risks of exploitation and empower them to achieve stability. We believe in them, and we invest in them. Because of this, we secured partial funding to look at more permanent solutions to food poverty and access to water in Kitui than simply giving out rice. We’ve been able to run a hydrogeological survey and secured permits to proceed with drilling a borehole.

And that’s where you come in. If you’ve felt compelled to donate to the Friday Rice Project, or you share our passion for the work our colleagues do to support students to live with dignity, free from the need for handouts, we’d love to invite you to be part of our intention to deliver a new, permanent water source at our Seed of Hope centre in Kangweni, Kitui county, Kenya.

The total cost of drilling the borehole and installing the community water pump is £30,375. We have already secured £10,500 from grants. You can donate today to help us to reach our goal.

If we all pool together we can make clean, safe water a reality for over 200 people every day in Kitui. Every small drop will make a difference.

• £4 = could provide 10 people with safe, clean water for the day
• £16 = could provide 40 people with safe, clean water for the day
• £20 = could provide 50 people with safe, clean water for the day
• £32 = could provide 80 people with safe, clean water for the day
• £80 = could provide a whole day of safe, clean water for 200 people from the community

Or you can make a monthly gift, enabling use of the borehole to catalyse food growing projects and activites: to set up a demonstration farm as a base to run agribusiness training for the local community in Kitui. This has the potential to benefit 300 trainees, and 900 family members each year through improved food security and achievable income. Your monthly contribution would also enable the farm to grow produce on site to use for free, nutritious student meals for 410 students each year. Helping more people than we could dream of through giving out rice once a week on a Friday.

To set up a monthly contribution towards community access to clean water, agricultural training for community members to feed their families, click here: