Internship Overview

My title with Aqua Clara is something like Research and Program Development Intern.

At work this week, I divided my time between my two largest projects for the summer. For three days, John and I trained students from Kenyatta University to collect water samples and help us with our lab tests. Next week is the start of our major water quality testing project in the Kisii region. To summarize, we’ve randomly selected filters from three nearby districts, and the students will sample each filter for four consecutive days, as well as carry out an 80-question survey about water availability, water use and health within each school or household. We’ll test the input water, output water and direct source water (stream, borehole, public spring, etc.), and evaluate whether the filters are producing output that meets standards for safe drinking water. This will help Aqua Clara monitor the performance of filters that have been installed over the past few years so that we can evaluate success based on filter age, location, builder (Community Development Entrepreneur), etc. This will hopefully identify project successes and opportunities for improvement. Also, in partnership with the Public Health Department, we’ll gather data about public water sources, which to date has not been formally studied in this region. I am grateful for the opportunity to be responsible for this project alongside John.

I spent two other days on my second highest priority – exploring the feasibility of a Public Participatory GIS platform (like Ushahidi) to spatially organize information for our NGO. I’m looking at mapping filter locations, partner schools and source water quality using standard SMS/text messages. If this works, I think it’ll really help Aqua Clara gather information in a more useful way than they have previously. As of now, they have a lot of disaggregated information, and only a very rough idea of where filters are located. I mentioned PP GIS as an option to the project director a few weeks ago, and he was really excited about the possibility. I hope I can make it work.

This afternoon, armed with the Kenyan roadmap that my mom purchased with amazing foresight, Sam and I are renting a car (2500 KES/day) to drive to Nakuru for the weekend. This will be both of our first times driving here, so that will be interesting. We’ll explore Nakuru town and the national park, and hopefully hike to the Menengai Crater, which is supposedly 90 sq km. Huge. I’m looking forward to my first visit to one of Kenya’s many national parks, hoping to see lots of flamingos, rhinos and giraffes!