Their underground water pipes in Kibera kept being vandalised and they resorted to carrying water overhead like it typically happens with electricity cables.
They had doubts initially. They had never seen such a thing and they wondered if it would hold. So, a test project was set up, in which a pipe was transmitting water over a 100-metre distance. It worked.
This inspired them to do a wider network in 2016, hence the 4.1-kilometre network of pipes that carry water while held aloft by concrete poles, with steel rods acting as the pipes’ backbones, in a section of the informal settlement. And now, the Shining Hope for Communities (Shofco), a non-governmental organisation that focuses on solving problems facing slum dwellers, is in the process of patenting the technology.
According to the August edition of the monthly journal from the Kenya Industrial Property Institute (Kipi), Shofco wants to own rights to the innovation.
They call it the “Process, Method and System of Aerial Piping and Distribution of Water” and the innovators are listed as Mr Kennedy Odede, the co-founder of Shofco, and Mr Michael Odhiambo.
“Water is obtained from a source and powered coercively through a pipe to an elevated water tank situated atop an appropriate steel or concrete support column. Water is then released from the elevated tank at pressure into high-density polyethylene pipes maintained in static position and calculated curvature by suspension cables,” reads part of the description.
“The entire system maintains an integrity monitoring and alarm mechanism by way of an ultra-thin electric or fibre-optic cable carrying a minute current in a closed circuit,” it adds.
In the journal, the innovation is categorised as published, meaning the industrial property institute has considered it deserving of a patent and this is the first step towards granting it. Kipi will, however, be considering any opposition that may be raised regarding ownership of the innovation.
Mr Johnstone Mutua, a water, sanitation and hygiene programme officer at Shofco, told Sunday Nation that the system solved many problems the organisation faced.
The organisation runs 25 water kiosks across Kibera. Initially, he said, the pipes that delivered water to the kiosks bore the brunt of vandals. Water supply in the informal settlement is controlled by unscrupulous dealers who tap from existing pipelines and sell to others after constructing their own system, often with plastic pipes. To stifle competition, sometimes one player damages the systems of another.
“We used to have an underground pipeline to get water to our water kiosks like the other kiosks. But the problem is that other people would vandalise our pipeline. One of the reasons they would vandalise was that our pricing was a little bit subsidised,” said Mr Mutua.
“We went back to the drawing board as we wanted something to solve the problem of contamination, vandalism, and cost of maintenance once and for all,” said Mr Mutua. “That’s when we conceptualised the aerial pipeline. Initially, we didn’t think it would work.”
Today, the system powers the Shofco water system in Kibera and parts of Mathare. The organisation draws water from a borehole, treats it, and pumps it to large tanks with a capacity of 100,000 litres from where it is carried to various water kiosks via the overhead pipes.
“Since then, our maintenance costs have gone down drastically. Hardly any vandalism has been reported, and because the pipeline is not underground, you can spot a leakage from a distance and fix it as opposed to something that’s underground where you have to look at where the pipeline is,” said Mr Mutua.
“Also, it’s not easy to construct a pipeline in Kibra because of the nature of settlements. There are no provisions for civil works, so you have to displace a lot of people, and you’re likely to get resistance when doing a trench for a pipeline,” he added.
The journey towards patenting having begun, Mr Mutua and his team-mates at Shofco believe they have discovered a solution for reliable supply of water especially to informal settlements.
Other published innovations in the August journal include a portable water filtration system that uses some kind of earth waste that is combined with an extract from mrenda vegetables.
The application has been made by Nairobi-based Mary Simiyu Taabu. There is also a portable solar heating application by one David Githinji Njuguna, also a Nairobi resident.
