A project sponsored by Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers supplies water to parched villages in Kenya.
For years, Mary Simon’s life revolved around a punishing search for water.
Under the relentless sun of southeastern Kenya, she regularly set out on a 10-hour walk to a distant river, accompanied by other women from her village. Her donkey carried a load of empty jerry cans. The women traveled together for safety on the long and dangerous journey. Once they reached the river, they filled their containers and then slept overnight on the riverbank, returning home the following day with their precious cargo.
The water they carried home would last just two days before it was time to make the journey again.
Today, Simon walks just five minutes from her home to a well at St. Michael the Archangel Church in the village of Kamboo. Laughing with other women as they gather water, she fills her container and heads home with time and energy to spare.
“The new well has given me a gift of time that I didn’t have before,” Simon says. “Instead of walking so far, I now spend time with my children and cooking for my family.”
The well was drilled by the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, whose work in the region has transformed the daily lives of thousands of people. For Simon and her neighbors, access to clean water means more than convenience. It has restored dignity, improved health and opened new opportunities.
“It has made a huge difference in our lives,” says Steven Mwalimu, the moderator of the church, a mission outstation not far from the town of Kibwezi.
Workers put finishing touches on a water point at St. Michael the Archangel Church in Kamboo. The wider Kibwezi region has been devastated by climate change. (Paul Jeffrey/Kenya)
“Now — instead of accompanying their mothers to fetch water — the small children can stay in school,” Mwalimu says. “Absenteeism is way down. And by reducing the burden of obtaining water, we can focus on other activities that help our families and the community to have a more sustainable economy.”
The project started supplying water in 2025. The hope is to eventually pipe water directly to the village’s school, market and clinic. Mwalimu says that goal will be easier when the church can add additional storage tanks at the well, which uses a solar-powered pump. When the sun is out, the existing tanks fill up quickly, although demand empties them just as fast.
Mwalimu says with the new well, the community has begun planting fruit trees to build food security in an area where farming has been decimated by the climate crisis.
In addition, he says the 590-foot-deep well — called a borehole in East Africa — has an added benefit for some other Kamboo residents. “The donkeys have a much easier life now,” Mwalimu says.
Regina Mumbua and donkeys walk with jerry cans to Christ the King Church in Kavete. (Paul Jeffrey/Kenya)
The Kamboo well is one of several that the Maryknoll Society drilled in the region.
Father Nicodemus Mbelenzi is pastor of Christ the King Church in Kavete, where Maryknoll also drilled a well and installed storage tanks. Villagers grow vegetables in a garden inside the parish compound, and a community water point draws people from far away.
“With long-term drought, the situation has grown rather pathetic here,” Father Mbelenzi says. “Children stopped going to school because of a lack of sanitation, or because their parents couldn’t afford school fees. But with water, they are clean and happy, and their parents can grow a few crops to sell in the market and have money for school fees. Water is a blessing for our people.”
Maryknoll’s involvement in the area started when Maryknoll Father Lance Nadeau served as chaplain at Kenyatta University in Nairobi. Father Nadeau got to know students from around the country, often visiting them in their home communities. When he visited the Kibwezi area, he found people suffering the direct effects of the climate crisis.
Women carry the jugs they filled at the community water point at Christ the King Church in Kavete. (Paul Jeffrey/Kenya)
“Since the late 1990s, what had once been a fertile region began to experience either severe drought or very unpredictable rainfall,” says Father Nadeau, today the superior general of Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers. “Families had moved to the region with the hope of farming the land, and at first they were successful, but then the changes in climate caught up with them. Poverty rates went up as people tried to grow food, but harvest after harvest failed.”
With support from Maryknoll donors, Father Nadeau started working with the Small Christian Communities in several villages around the center of Kibwezi. Besides digging wells and installing water storage tanks, they raised goats and planted trees. In the hardest-hit communities, Maryknoll supported a food-for-work program that kept the poorest families alive during the worst periods of drought.
Daniel Muli, the deputy moderator of St. Anthony Church in Vengini, another small village near Kibwezi, says the completion of their well last year has already produced noticeable results. Even though the water in their location shows some salinity, he says, it’s fine to use for washing and for irrigating most crops.
“You can see that our people are clean and our animals are healthy,” he says. “And you can see all the fruit trees we’ve planted. We’ll have bananas and other fruit. We’ve planted peppers and berries. Our children will eat well.”
Featured image: Mary Simon fills jerry cans with fresh water at St. Michael the Archangel Church in Kamboo, Kenya, where the Maryknoll Society has financed a well and storage system. (Paul Jeffrey/Kenya)
