I met Phillip on the second day of a whirlwind trip to Kenya last year. Like his father before him, Phillip had grown up poor.
“Life was difficult,” he says, remembering his childhood. “Illness was common due to poor diet and bad hygiene. We could take days without food and going to school was a struggle.”
Due to his family’s poverty, Phillip was unable to finish his education. And, as a primary school dropout, his life’s course seemed set.
You see, poverty is generational in Phillip’s part of the world. And it’s a cycle which is incredibly hard to break.
“The only job I could get was a casual job at construction sites,” Phillip explains, “But they are hard to get and very low paying.”
When Phillip became a dad himself, he felt the burden of his poverty more than ever. With a young family to provide for, he had no other choice but to travel 300km from home to Garissa city in search of work.
“It was very uncomfortable to work far away from my family,” Phillip says. “I could imagine how my little son missed my presence. And my wife had to do all the jobs (at home), even the ones I am supposed to do.”
Sadly, this is not an uncommon story for poor families like Phillip’s. But even in Garissa, he had trouble finding regular employment. Every cent he earned was put towards his family’s survival.
“It was very hard for my family to cope in life,” Phillip says, “I could not meet the basic family needs.”
And then, in 2013 something happened which changed life for Phillip and his family… forever. His casual job had ended, and without any other work to keep him in Garissa, Phillip decided to come home.
“When I arrived,” he remembers, “I found an organisation had started constructing a project with the community. A sand dam at a nearby river!”
Sand dams are simple structures, built across seasonal, sandy rivers. They are designed to “catch” water-laden sand during the rainy season, so families can have a stable source of clean water all year round. (Families collect water by digging in the seemingly dry riverbed.) It is an incredibly smart and cost effective way to give whole communities a nearby water source.
With no other jobs available to him, Phillip decided to put his skills in construction to good use and join the project as a volunteer. And that’s how he connected with the organisation helping his community to build the sand dam, our Christian partner in the field, ADS Eastern.
With the help of ADS Eastern, Phillip received all sorts of training. From learning to breed indigenous goats with larger goats that produce more milk (which means more income), to agricultural training which has changed the way he farms.
“I used to… get a total of three bags in a season,” says Phillip. “(But) through these trainings I learnt that rains in our area are erratic and we need to grow drought tolerance seed.”
By diversifying his crop, and growing hardier drought resistant varieties, Phillip has multiplied his harvest to seven 90kg bags!
Today Phillip has a flourishing farm. He has earned enough to multiply 1 goat to 23 and he has even started keeping chickens.
“I have 20 chicken,” he says. “Keeping chicken has improved life in my family because (by selling them) they are quick cash to cater for basic need.”
But Phillip’s successes are not limited to his farm. Through his involvement on the sand dam project, he was also nominated to train as a sand dam artisan. And as a fully qualified artisan, Phillip now receives payment for the jobs he works on… which helped him build a new home for his family!
But what is even more impressive, is that through these sand dams, he has helped give more than 800 people in drought prone Kenya a reliable source of water. What an incredible multiplication of impact!
“I feel very happy,” he says, “I am honoured when I see people fetching water from the sand dams.”
Through Baptist World Aid’s annual Matching Grant Appeal, your gifts are matched with an Australian Government aid grant and are used to fund life-changing work like this possible.
By matching your gifts with the Australian Government aid grant, it can have up to six times the impact for poor families like Phillip’s. But best of all, your generosity helps dads like Phillip to multiply impact themselves.
“I am very happy,” Phillip says. “I do walk chest forward knowing that I can provide at least all the needs of my family as a true African man.”
Phillip no longer worries about his children having a childhood like his own… because he has made sure that his family’s story of poverty ends with him.
Help dads like Phillip break generational poverty. Give to Baptist World Aid’s Matching Grant Appeal today. baptistworldaid.org.au/matching-grant
Source: BUV News