Eye Opener Trip For KenGen Foundation and Eastern Hydros Staff

“It all begun in 2009 after media reports indicated that the people of Yatta were starving to a point of eating dogs following the long hard drought of 2007”, Dr. Masika narrated to the KenGen team. “I realised that the people from this area were so used to relying on donor aid and relief food, or mwolyo, that they were mentally “boxed” in their ways of thinking. Only a change in their mindsets would help them out of their dire situation.

“Research showed that the Yatta community’s woes were pegged on several obstacles… lack of adequate food, insufficient financial resources, poor education standards, and most importantly lack of water. This led me to start a social movement dubbed Operation Mwolyo Out, aimed at total eradication of poverty in the area.”

Six years down the road, what was dubbed the poorest location of Yatta is now a food basket of the county, producing food crops, vegetables and fruits all the year round, thanks to an ingenious innovation of water harvesting and storage.

Bishop Masika showcases how one of the zai pits at his farm works.

Operation Mwolyo Out (OMO) worked on the principle that social deprivations can be effectively addressed if a homestead had steady water supply. This led the CIM on a massive campaign to help the community set up dams at every homestead to harness water from the annual long rains season. “We had to make the community understand that crops don’t grow from rain, but from water”, says the 66-year old Bishop adding that though Yatta is a dry area, trapping the floods of the annual rains and storing the water in dams is all the community needed to have a permanent water supply.