Grace's Story

Grace Achieng’ speaks confidently and brightly. At only seventeen years of age, Grace is heading a family. Grace and her five siblings are among the 1.5 million children orphaned by HIV/AIDS in Kenya. They live in Nyanza province, the worst hit with the scourge.

Today when I meet Grace, her sister and three brothers, I find them in a sorry state. Fate seems to have dealt these children a poor card. They lack the barest necessities of life. They have no food, no shelter. Sometimes, their equally impoverished neighbors give them something to eat. Most times, they sleep hungry.

"When darkness sets in, we go looking for somewhere to sleep," Grace tells me.

Outside their desolate compound, their late mother’s grass thatched, mud-walled hut lies in ruins. The derelict hut is a sad reminder of the children’s plight. You see, Grace’s mother did not only die of HIV but also a broken heart.

Early this year, Grace’s mom was bursting with hope and health. She had just received a table and several PET bottles from The Water School(TWS) to help in purifying her drinking water.

In this area, getting clean drinking water is a dream. There is no running tap water. Inhabitants get drinking water from dirty wells and infested rivers. This is highly dangerous, more so, for people weakened by HIV/AIDS. Contracting waterborne diseases such as diarrhea, typhoid and amoebae can easily worsen their condition and prove fatal. Hence the importance of Drinking Clean Water.

The water purification table was a great boost to Grace’s mom. The simple technique of laying out bottles in the sun to kill bacteria was almost too good to believe for this poor family. They accepted it graciously. They knew that the clean water would prolong their mom’s life.

"Mom was so happy, to get the table," says Grace. "She became attached. In it she saw hope for more time to spend with us, she says." That is until one night when the table was stolen.

"Mom was so sad," says Grace, a faraway look in her eyes. After that, Grace’s mom didn’t last long. She didn’t have clean drinking water anymore. The last glimmer of hope had gone with the table. Her condition accelerated. She gave up on life. She died of a broken heart.

Though their mother is no longer with them, Grace and her siblings carry on the spirit of purifying their drinking water through SODIS (Solar Water Disinfection). A single crooked iron sheet balances unsteadily on a tree stump, just near their mom’s fallen hut. Here, lies several PET bottles filled with water, proof of their dedication to using the TWS system.

"We still disinfect our water," says Grace. "We no longer experience stomach problems," she says. "We hope we can replace the stolen table," says the youngest child, Lilian Awino.

As we leave Grace’s compound, Bob Dell and Myron Penner from The Water School promise to get the children another table. A table in memory of their mother.