By Sylvia Chebet
A long and winding murram road stretches ahead of Esther Njeru, the rays of the midmorning sun bouncing off her weather-beaten face.
The 65-year-old walks briskly, carrying an empty 20-litre container that will be brimming with water when she returns. Esther has been doing this for years –trudging miles to fetch water from rivers for her family's needs.
Much to the relief of Esther and her community in the Central Kenya county of Tharaka Nithi, their punishing daily grind is coming to an end.
Privately-owned eWATER Services has sunk several boreholes close to Esther's homestead as part of a pilot project to provide clean and affordable water to rural populations in Kenya.
Water drawn from boreholes is pumped to elevated tanks and disinfected to kill pathogens. It then flows down to the solar-powered smart taps.
The smart taps operate through a prepaid system based on the concept of IoT, or the Internet of Things.
"The local community in Tharaka Nithi is experiencing water supply like never before. This project will transform their lives drop by drop," Elisha Omega, an engineer at eWATER Services, tells TRT Afrika.
Prepaid system
Using their mobile phones, users purchase eWATER credit and then access clean water by tapping a magnetic tag.
"We have made several visits to the community, explaining how these taps operate," says Omega.
Esther is among the many eager faces crowding around what is described as a "first-of-its-kind eWATER smart tap". She unwraps a cloth bearing a magnetic blue tag, which she sticks onto a tag reader on the encasing just above the tap. Water gushes out instantly.
"It is an automatic system. There's no wastage as the tap opens and closes instantly," explains Omega. "You get a unique identification code, which is the account number…So, once you have money in the tag, place it on the tap, and it will dispense water automatically."
Widespread reach
This sustainable water access programme aims to reach over one million people in Kenya by 2029.
Faith Makena, whose home is barely 200 metres from the nearest eWATER smart tap, couldn't be more relieved at the thought of getting potable water without walking miles.
Until recently, she would buy not-so-clean water from vendors, paying the equivalent of US $1 for about eight 20-litre containers. For the same price, she now gets enough water to fill 30 such containers.
"I use the water for washing, cooking, drinking and all other domestic needs," she tells TRT Afrika.
Guarantee of purity
Zacharia Njeru, Kenya's water cabinet secretary, reassured residents during the opening of the pilot project that what they were getting was water purified to the highest standard using scientific methods.
Tharaka Nithi County's governor, Muthomi Njuki, believes the project will have a significant health impact on the county's population.
"The waterborne diseases for which hordes of people would flock the Nkodi and other dispensaries across Tharaka Nithi will be a thing of the past," he says.
"Nobody should try and convince you not to buy water. They will say you can save two shillings by fetching river water, but it's a lie. You have only bought a disease."
The money charged for the water takes care of maintenance and repairs. "If a pipe bursts or a pump malfunctions and needs to be replaced, there will always be funds to take care of that," says Omega.
"Some sensors tell us where a fault has occurred, maybe a leakage or a pump malfunction. The technical team responds as quickly as possible."
Huge gender burden
According to UNICEF, women and girls worldwide collectively spend 200 million hours fetching water daily, an opportunity cost that is hardly considered.
For girls, collecting water for the family is a strenuous, unpaid chore that means less time spent at school or dropping out altogether.
For women, spending hours on this daily chore means not being able to devote time to make meaningful economic gains. This, in turn, increases their vulnerability to poverty.
As Makena parts ways with her neighbour Esther, their backs hunched forward under the weight of the containers they each carry, a new dawn beckons with the promise of a life less burdensome.
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