Friends of the Old Kenya
Friends of the Old Kenya
Friends of the Old (FOTO) is a humanitarian Community-Based Organization that became operational in 2009.
The world largely ignores the chronic epidemic of waterborne diseases, that World Health Organization estimates daily cause more than 4,600,000 episodes of diarrhea and more than 2,000 deaths among a billion people living in extreme poverty worldwide.
Unlike the big three - HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB, waterborne diseases are not hard to prevent: kill the germs with heat (pasteurization) or chlorine and people don't get sick.
A unique approach to eliminate waterborne diseases has been incorporated in the FOTO Project in Lower Nyakach, where 70,000 plus people have no access to safe drinking watr sources, and they have to use heavily contaminated rivers, streams, ponds and shallow wells.
A key component of FOTO's unique approach is to enable the FOTO staff to perform and interpret the most widely used tests for E. Coli from the water and the food industries. After overnight incubation, the early interpreted results place the sample in one of four WHO Risk categories; low, moderate, high or very high. The tests demystify microbiology at the community level and replaces dangerous myths about water safety and disease transmission with science.
FOTO Staff with solar cooked foods
FOTO Staff water testing with petrifilms
2019 IDEXX Water Humanitarian Award
Beneficiary of reading glasses testing a pair
Seline Teaching Water Testing to school children
Residents delighted to recieve Aquaguard for water treatment
A beneficiary of certified seeds with his healthy crop
Tailoring Training for sponsored school girls
ICT training for sponsored school girls
In 2010, the UN General Assembly and the Kenya Constitution passed a resolution declaring
"safe and clean water a basic human right essential to the full enjoyment of life".
The Kenya 2010 Constitution stated that
"Every person has the right to clean and safe water in adequate quantities"
- The Constitution of Kenya 2010, Chapter 4: the Bill of Rights Part 2- Rights and Fundamentals Freedoms 43
FOTO is working in the community to accomplish this, and hopes that the success story can be replicated in other parts of the country and elsewhere.
The goal is zero: a strategy to eliminate waterborne disease from Lower Nyakach.
Prof. Robert and Dr. MaryBeth Metcalf and IWHA
Through his microbiology expertise and International Water and Health Alliances (IWHA), an NGO he co-founded, Prof. Robert Metcalf is able to financially support FOTO in establishing a replicable strategy to eliminate waterborne diseases in Lower Nyakach.
Since 2012, through IWHA, Prof. Metcalf and his wife, Mary Beth Metcalf, M.D., are providing funds to FOTO for a monthly distribution on 9,320 Aquaguard chlorine bottles to all households and schools. Prof. Metcalf's pioneering research demonstrated that heating contaminated water to 65°C will pasteurize the water and make it safe to drink.
In 2020, FOTO received the Water Humanitarian award from the IDEXX company that makes the colilert test, the most widely used water test worldwide.
In 2013, at the International Water Association's 3rd Development Congress, IWHA had a booth showing participants how easy it was to perform the Colilert and Petrifilm tests to recieve overnight results. Prof. Metcalf and FOTO project Director Dinah Chienjo gave a presentation on the FOTO Project: "The Goal is Zero Waterborne Disease."
FOTO's Village Access Facilitators and Village Enterprise Personnel regularly test sources of drinking water in Lower Nyakach for contamination using Colilert and Petrifilm Tests, and sensitize the public on findings.
FOTO monthly distributes bottles of Aquaguard chlorine to households and schools for citizens to treat their contaminated drinking water sources every time.
In January, FOTO distributes 2kg packages of certified sorghum seed to 2600 elderly households,200 in each of the 13 locations. These seeds increase food production and food security.
Selected girls from vulnerable grandparent families in Lower Nyakach are able to receive secondary school education through the generosity of FOTO's donors, Prof. Robert and Dr. MaryBeth Metcalf and IWHA. Over 160 girls have directly benefited from this program. During school holidays, the girls are trained on life skills that include ICT, dressmaking and design, basket weaving, food preparation using the solar cooker as well as agribusiness. This financial support has been key in achieving the transformative success of the girls' lives.
Friends of the Old distributes reading glasses to senior citizens of Lower Nyakach every month. Elders appreciate recovering their ability to read from their mobile phones, Bibles, newspapers and other literature.
FOTO promotes solar cooking with the Cookit solar cooker and use of an insulated basket, the 'fireless cooker,' to promote an energy-efficient and environmentally sustainable alternative to the use of firewood. Solar cooking avoids indoor air pollution of fires and lightens women's duties. Sunshine is the renewable energy source that the Kenya government can't place a Value Added Tax on.
Dinah Chienjo
Joseph Abende