Search Results
Evie Treen
For 30 years Goleta resident Evie Treen has made it her life's mission to bring fresh water, education and better sanitation to rural villages in Kenya. Building a 400- to 600- foot-deep water well costs on average $60,000 to $70,000, including a professional geologist, soil analysis, drilling equipment and solar technology to drive the water pump. That’s if everything goes well.
The first well she built was in a Maasai town located in the Amboseli National Park at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro. It now serves 600 to 1,000 residents with fresh water.
"We all forget how lucky we are to have a faucet to turn on and get water," says Treen.
Since 2009, Friends of Woni International has built three wells, one of which is coined "the magic well". It was built in 2011 for a small farming community of 2,000 to 3,000 in Ngunyumu, Kenya. The org has also built a high school dormitory in Kyaani, and is now engaged on a soon-to-be-built sanitation infrastructure for the community. women and children, who previously traveled as far as five miles a day to fill their 20-liter water cans walk less than a half-mile to the central well that provides water for the entire village. With potable water more easily available they now have time for other activities, such as farming, raising livestock, basket weaving, and school for the children.
