Luis Feliu
Tweed Shire Council’s humanitarian project providing safe drinking water to remote communities in Kenya is saving hundreds of lives a year by preventing many children succumbing to water-borne diseases such as typhoid and cholera.
The Tweed Kenya Mentoring Program (TKMP) continues to inspire council staff and the community at large, many of who have donated privately to the project, which has been running for around 12 years.
The story of the council-driven initiative was told to almost 200 people at Murwillumbah’s Regent Cinema last night in a screening of a documentary entitled ‘The Flow-On Effect’.
The documentary focuses on the program’s Safewater 6 project, completed in Siaya County last year, but explores TKMP’s evolution throughout the past decade.
Former council general manager (and, before that, engineering director) Mike Rayner, who attended the screening, initiated the program after a chance meeting with Kenyan social worker Olita Ogonjo at an international water conference in Japan in 2003.
The project has since evolved, bringing water filtration and other health initiatives to several Siayan communities suffering economic and social hardship because of their remoteness.
Around a dozen of council’s staff volunteer their time to got to Kenya to install the filters at dams throughout the region which then provides clean water to the villagers from a kiosk built jointly by the community and the Tweed volunteers.
The program has resulted in increased access to safe water and sanitation, improved community and environmental health for Kenyan families and strengthened bonds of friendship with the Tweed community.
Council engineer Bob Hanby, one of the long-term volunteers for the program, told the cinema audience that people in the Tweed took the shire’s clean water and sanitation management for granted and were unaware of the difficulties and health problems faced by many poor rural communities in Africa and around the world.
Yet a simple technology such as the Skyjuice micro-filters produced in the Tweed and Burleigh Heads, and generously provided for the program by the company at little cost, can make a huge difference to the lives of the Kenyan communities they service.
Mr Hanby has travelled to Kenya for the last two safe-water projects and has made many friends in communities there.
He said it started off for him as ‘a personal challenge but had turned into more of a passion’ and he hoped the film would inspire people to support or even become involved in it.
‘The outcomes for you personally will be tremendous,’ he said.
The documentary, filmed, edited and narrated by council media officer Scott Green, gave supporters of the program in attendance last night further insight to the initiative and its achievements.
Mr Green said that to be given the opportunity by council to go to Kenya and make the documentary was a ‘truly amazing experience’ and he was grateful for the assistance and support from council.
He said he hoped the film inspired people to get on board and support the program and ‘also be proud of what we’ve achieved so far’.
One of the co-ordinators for the project, Tom Alletson, said the film shows what the program has achieved over the past 10 years and helps Tweed locals gain a different insight to the lives of people living in the Siaya region of western Kenya.
Many people at the screening last night told Echonetdaily the film had been very inspiring.
One person told the audience when the film ended that he was now ‘truly proud’ to be a Tweed ratepayer, which was roundly applauded.
Tweed mayor Gary Bagnall told the audience that many people and businesses in the Tweed donated to the project and that more people should get involved.
Cr Bagnall said many councils across NSW had sister-city relationships to forge friendships with overseas countries and their communities, but the Tweed Kenya Mentoring Program was much more meaningful and achieved better outcomes in health and education for them than merely ceremonial relationships.
All proceeds from the screening will go to the Tweed Kenya Mentoring Program.
