Africa 14-Day Trip: January 2016
Published on February 24, 2016
Sweet Water Outreach kicked off the new year with a fourteen day trip to Africa. The team, John Blevins, SWO’s founder and operations director, Bucky Kinsaul, the secretary-treasurer as well as fill in photographer, and Adam Kinsaul a nurse practitioner, travelled to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Kisii, Kenya.
Arriving first in Dar es Salaam they travelled to Morogoro, where they spent a few night, traveling back and forth into a small village, Dihombo, nearby. In Dihombo they installed a Chlorine Generator and Adam taught a medical and first aid course. They left two additional generators in Dihombo with a local group that they trained to install them. The work accomplished in Dihombo was a collaborative work between SWO and VIMI, Vision for Ministry Foundation, which is associated with Mountain Top Church in Birmingham, AL.
In Kisii, John Inspected the water purification systems that SWO had previously installed. Unfortunately, He found some minor structural issues with one of the frames. John was afraid that this was causing water to stagnate but was able to repair it easily and the get the system up and running in better working order! Local Communities play an important part of SWO’s work and John spent several days in Local committee meetings working to build and maintain their working relationship and plans for a future pipeline were discussed. John was also able to inspect a local well that has fallen into disrepair and hopes to be able to fix it as well as install a chlorine generator at a local school, later this year. Adam, meanwhile, spent his time visiting the local Hospital in Tabaka and several Medical Clinics. He spent one day, entirely, in a clinic treating patients. The clinic usually treats up to 10 patients a day but many more showed up to see Adam and he was able to treat 50 patients that day.
SWO’s January 2016 trip was incredibly successful and will enable the team to prepare for an longer and even more productive trip this summer. As always, the work Sweet Water Outreach does would not be possible without our partners here at home and the entire SWO team would like to thank you for your continued support.