Bright Futures at St. Edward's School
In 2006, Bishop Solomon Otieno founded the St. Edwards School with a mission to care for the most vulnerable children in the community. At the time, just six students relied on the school for food, education and a safe place to grow.
By 2024, the school had grown to include 450 students from ages 3 to 17, many orphans or children of broken homes, while the school sponsors 250 older students in secondary school. However, while the staff at St. Edwards strive to provide their students with the support they need, the lack of water access in the community prevents the school from providing a safe and healthy environment for the kids.
Each day after class at St. Edwards School in Awendo, Kenya, 450 students set off on a journey to find water. With 10L jerry cans in tow, they walk for half an hour down a dirt road until they reach the nearest water source – a spring they share with thousands of people from Awendo Village and the surrounding communities. Hundreds of families wash their clothes in the same water the children drink.
Worse, since the spring is unprotected, the water is mixed with runoff from several local farms. When the children start their walk home, they’re carrying 10 liters of contaminated water – leaving the school vulnerable to waterborne diseases. During the dry season, the spring dries up, forcing the children to walk six kilometres in the heat every day in search of water to drink.
As long as the school had no option but unprotected water, the students were constantly at risk of waterborne diseases. Children at St. Edwards reported suffering from frequent stomach aches, headaches, and even vomiting from waterborne ailments.
In March 2025, everything changed for the St. Edward’s community. The Ken Brock Memorial Project opened on March 3rd, providing safe water access to more than 6,000 people in the area, including hundreds of students and staff at St. Edward’s School.
H2O4ALL’s Kenya team first arrived in December 2024 to begin drilling a borehole at the school. Later that winter, they returned to complete implementation of the water system, including two 5,000-litre tanks, a purification system, and an access point in Awendo Village.
As the project progressed, our team was frequently accompanied by the kids at St. Edwards, who shared their struggles living without clean water.
“We are going to avoid diseases like typhoid and diarrhea.” one young girl shared in an interview. Another student mentioned that students would be able to manage time better during the dry season.
The project was also a relief to the wider Awendo community, who finally had a water source they could depend upon. Prior to the project, two-thirds of the community had identified water access as their biggest problem, while more than 80% of Awendo residents had suffered from waterborne diseases. Eager for change, many of the adults in the community stepped up to help the Kenya team complete the project.
After the project was completed, the Kenya team brought the community together to learn about water safety, hygiene, and system maintenance. The community also established a water committee of local leaders to ensure that the water was managed fairly, safely and sustainably.
The project was named in honour of Ken Brock, an H2O4ALL USA board member, lawyer, and advocate for education who passed away last October. Ken’s commitment to justice, education, and sustainable change will live on through the lives touched by this project, uplifting the St Edward’s School and surrounding communities for generations to come.
