Kenya - A drop of education in the desert. Karare's mission

17 July 2017

(ANS - Karare) - In the Marsabit region, Kenya's largest, water shortage represents an insurmountable difficulty that negatively conditions the entire area. Only 35.7% of the region's inhabitants have access to drinking water. Natural sources are arid for much of the year. Water supply wells of different types are commonly used, where possible; otherwise, rainwater is collected in tanks which, however, are insufficient for the population's needs - and are also cause diarrhea and trigger typhus epidemics.

“Karare is practically an island in the desert: located on the margins of a small forest, it is populated by about eighty elephants,” says Fr Felice Molino, Salesian Missionary to Kenya, who has, among other things, the task of finding help and resources needed to help the many Salesian houses in Kenya and Tanzania currently experiencing a difficult time.

“The Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (FMA),” he adds, “manage running a high school for girls who come from the desert: families of nomadic shepherds where children are mostly sent to tend stock. The work of the nuns is to prepare future teachers for these areas, areas that are immense and immersed in the desert. To give dignity and education to these girls is very important. The Sisters are doing doing their job well and with great sacrifice to themselves."

Obviously, water shortage has important consequences also from a sanitary-hygienic point-of-view: there is always a girl or nun sick with malaria or typhus. Fr Molino continues: "They have no water and despite the fact that there are two hundred girls, they must make due with the rain water they need to collect drop-per-drop during the rainy season. They do not have a sewage system and so they boil the little water they drink, and rely on luck for its other uses."

For this reason, Karare's FMA plans to build a solar-powered electrical system which will also serve to heat the water - mornings and evenings are very cold in the desert - and a purification system for drinking water that would eliminate the diseases afflicting students and missionaries.

More information is available on the "Don Bosco Missions" website.

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ANS - “Agenzia iNfo Salesiana” is a on-line almost daily publication, the communication agency of the Salesian Congregation enrolled in the Press Register of the Tibunal of Rome as n 153/2007.

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