‘Water ATMs’ to help Kenyan slum dwellers

By Magdalene Mukami

NAIROBI, Kenya 

Residents of Kenya’s Mathare slums in the capital Nairobi have always been forced to live without access to clean water. 

Getting clean and safe drinking water has always been a challenge due to poor sanitation in the slums.

When waterborne diseases such as cholera strike the Kenyan capital, the half a million people who live in Mathare, one of the biggest slums in Africa, are the first to be affected.

There is no proper drainage or sewer system, forcing residents to rely on “flying toilets” where they defecate in a paper bag and sling shot it into the air without worrying where the flying toilet will land.

Cartels who have illegally tapped into the Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company’s lines have set high prices for the valuable slum commodity, charging slum dwellers around 50 U.S. cents for 20 liters of water.

For most slum dwellers, the prices are too high as most of them are either unemployed or earn less than a dollar a day.

The Kenyan government has come up with new ATM-style water dispensers that provide water for the residents of Mathare for only half a US cent for 20 liters of clean and safe water.

Locals call them “Water ATMs” and many have acquired the government’s prepaid water cards to be able to access the water.

“This system allows the residents of Mathare slums to enjoy clean and safe water for drinking and cooking,” Mbaruku Vyakweli, an official from the Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company, told Anadolu Agency.

“Cartels have been disrupting our systems and connecting cheap plastic pipes which pass through raw sewage thus causing diseases for many of the residents, but with these new H2O ATMs we are able to serve the people and at an affordable price,” the official added.

Mutindi Mukami, 30, runs an eatery in the slums. He told Anadolu Agency that the new system really benefits those who are in the food industry in the slums.

“A month or two ago things were very bad for us,” Mukami told Anadolu Agency. “My place of work is on top of a sewer ditch and it is one of the cleanest food joints in this area. We were hit by a cholera outbreak that also affected me.”

“This new ATM water offers us clean drinking water that does not pass through sewage and at a very cheap price,” she added.

According to the county government, only 500,000 cubic meters of water is supplied to Nairobi residents per day, a shortage of 140,000 cubic meters from the required amount.

“We do not have piped water in the slums, those who have piped water must have connected the water illegally,” Sheila Wanjohi, a Mathare slums resident and owner of a second-hand clothes shop, told Anadolu Agency. “The new ATM water machines are like gift from heaven. We get clean water and at a very cheap price.”

With the introduction of the ATM water machines supplying clean and safe water to slum dwellers, experts say sanitation levels in the slums will improve.

“This is a one of its kind program, which will improve the living standards of slum dwellers,” Victor Amuso, a sanitation expert from the Nairobi-based water company, told Andaolu Agency. “All they need is a prepaid card from the water company and they are good to go.”

Earlier this year, more than 3,235 cases of cholera were reported in Kenya with more than 65 people dying in a single week.

Most of those affected were slum dwellers from Mathare and Kibera.