: Human Needs Project (HNP)

Discussion Forum

Project Site Selection / Enumeration Challenges

By PCI Posted on Wed 14 Aug 2013, over 11 years ago

Hi David,

Welcome to PWX and thank you so much for all of the thoughtful commentary you provided above. The posts above answered many of my questions but one further area I was hoping to learn more about is the selection process for the Town Center building site and what, if any, challenges you faced regarding land tenure rights and creating space for the building site in Kibera. For instance, were there existing structures (residential buildings, clinics, etc.) than needed to be removed? If so, what was the process for that and how was the community involved in the decision-making? Apologies if this was previously answered in your materials.

Many thanks in advance,
John

Data, knowledge-management, and decision-support systems

By Peer Water Exchange Posted on Wed 07 Aug 2013, over 11 years ago

Jambo David and Connie,

Your project is both ambitious and well-drawn out (have been admiring your plans from an artistic point of view!). As a builder, i know you have great process practices.

How are you doing that here? What KPIs are you establishing for both implementation and operations. What metrics are you tracking and planning to track?

How are you capturing the data? Unlike your building projects (assumption), this project's goal is to have more reproducibility so it is important to capture all the learnings esp. with all the challenges that surface and how HNP tackles them.

Also, i hope you forsee training your leaders/managers to participate in these operating processes and reporting systems. Often i have seen them be successful in community issues, but not with processes and information systems.

Looking forward to working with you in this area.

Asante,
Rajesh

Data, knowledge-management, and decision-support systems

By Human Needs Project (HNP) Posted on Fri 09 Aug 2013, over 11 years ago

Jambo Rajesh,

I've included our most ambitious data collection chart (will be uploading to the documents). We are now building the software that will collate the data collection from all the sensors that will be in the field. A lot of the hard physical data collection (e.g water flow, water temperature, gallons/min. delivered, etc.) are standard ops. on a lot of the control systems we're installing.

On the social structure side, this is where James Tinker (from UC Berkeley) is developing active survey models for impact evaluation surveys and working with the CDC (Center for Disease Control) on his template.

This project, as depicted in the chart, will be on-going for a solid year, as we start harvesting information and putting together and exercising the newly developed software. As discussed, I would like to have a conference call with you, John Gage and perhaps our collaborator, Andy Barkett, who is helping on these programs as well, if he is available.

Once we get the pilot project going, the information can be accessed through "the cloud" to various organizations with password access so they can analyze the data they're interested in and we can be "gate keepers" on where the information goes. For example, if a corporate collaborator wants to validate how well their product is selling in the marketplace, we can give them access to our system, have an app. for our subscribers to respond to (as far as survey) and this can be done on a time cycle (TBD). Then, they can get the information as they need. We are currently doing this with two of our corporate collaborators.

I would like to keep you in the loop since it seems you have a lot of interest in this area.

Thanks,

David

The difficulties/ barriers/challenges side of things

By Bank-On-Rain Posted on Fri 02 Aug 2013, over 11 years ago

Hi David,

Your answers to the first question and all the information you have provided is most impressive.

I am interested in the biggest obstacles and or challenges you have had to deal with so far in getting where you are (2 months from completion) and what do you see as your biggest barriers and or challenges to the success of your project(s) going forward in the future?

The difficulties/ barriers/challenges side of things

By Human Needs Project (HNP) Posted on Wed 07 Aug 2013, over 11 years ago

Caroline,

The biggest challenges in getting to where we are to date is working inside of a country where experimentation on how to address poverty issues has been mired in old traditional approaches that people are comfortable with that do not have the final transformative fix we're all after. Hence, the road blocks to entitlements, planning, staffing, became larger hurdles than what we anticipated as well as buy-in from the local academics that our plan has merit and that they would want to participate in a meaningful way (outside of saying "we're interested and want to help.").

The biggest barrier we have moving forward is not in the functionality of the physical structure and the performance of the infrastructure but in the governance and co-op ownership and how they tend to the financial matters and social structure that will allow the entire system to be self sustaining as an on-going business endeavor.

It is to this effort we are going to keep a close and helpful hand on the social fabric enhancements that will allow the Town Center to proper. The stakeholder buy-in from the Kiberan community has been overwhelming and the simple fact that we will deliver clean and quality water into the community has created a ground swell of appreciation. But, as in any community where basic infrastructure is not available, delivering a robust and sound business plan coupled with a solid physical infrastructure is a recipe that needs much attention and that is what we have been doing for the last 3 months since construction is well under way.

Thanks,

David

The difficulties/ barriers/challenges side of things

By Bank-On-Rain Posted on Wed 14 Aug 2013, over 11 years ago

It seems to come down to the "tipping point" or transition from people expecting things to be done for them to doing them for themselves. Maybe not politically correct however I sometimes call this "social engineering" ~ what do we have to do to help the transition come about? You are running into it on a far larger scale than our small projects, but in essence it is the same. I am interested in continuing a dialog on this.

Thanks for all the time you spent here to answer our questions so comprehensively and all the very best for continued progress.

Welcome!

By Global Women's Water Initiative Posted on Tue 06 Aug 2013, over 11 years ago

David and Connie and all reviewers

Congrats and welcome! What a great conversation! So much thoughtfulness in both the questions and answers.

Since our program focuses on women's inclusion and engagement in local water interventions, I'd be interested to learn about your leadership selection process - if you have a gender strategy or programs that bring women into the decision-making, management or outreach/education infrastructure.

Also, as a member, what do you feel you can contribute as well as gain by being part of the network?

Be well
gemma

Welcome!

By Human Needs Project (HNP) Posted on Wed 07 Aug 2013, over 11 years ago

Gemma,

Your question regarding our leadership selection process is a good question! When Connie and I first entered the community, we made sure that we engaged with the active women's groups inside Kibera. As we began to unfold our plans and present to the community what the Town Center project would mean to them, we addressed the women directly regarding what they needed. The tribal leaders are men but the movers and shakers are the women. Hence, our leadership structure is a composite of women's groups with men's groups. We tried to balance and quite honestly, we may have more women's groups in our co-op than we do men. On our trainee side, we are the face of Kenya. Out of the 42 tribes in Kenya, we have approximately 25 represented in the trainee group and we are a 50/50 blend of men/women. Our country director for HNP is Juliet Dima and we hired her because of her strong political success in organizing disenfranchised women's groups and being a strong advocate for bringing women's groups into licensing positions underneath Kenyan law. She is a trained attorney and has a desire to maintain women's advocacy in our project. The men leaders that have been chosen to work with us have been hard working, cooperating and communicative. This may sound very "Mary Poppins" like but we went through 500 interviews to select who we felt were the best faces for Kenya and for Kibera. We were extremely fortunate in getting such a good group together. The on-going barazas (AKA: Town Hall meetings) and the consistent communication from our country director as well as either Connie or I being there every 3 weeks has added to the spirit of participation and trust.

As a member, I believe HNP can contribute to the network a high level of building trade expertise as well as a thorough understanding of the parsing out the needs of a community and responding with a social armature than can be used as the organizational tool to deliver the infrastructure to the community. We have a deep and talented group of consultants that have delivered an immense amount of knowledge and technology to our platform, both from the private and the academic sectors.

Again, this is another contribution that we would love to share with Blue Planet. I appreciate becoming a member and based on the questions to date, I love the professionalism and the attention to detail that everyone has commented on.

Thanks,

David

Welcome!

By Global Women's Water Initiative Posted on Fri 16 Aug 2013, over 11 years ago

Wonderful! Thanks so much! I'm so glad that you found such a wonderful group and you did such a thorough and thoughtful search.

Good luck!
gemma

Questions on Cost of Services, Operations and Maintenance, governance and replication

By 1001 fontaines Posted on Sat 03 Aug 2013, over 11 years ago

Dear David and Connie,

Congratulations on taking on such an ambitious and innovative initiative. I am sure that you are looking forward to the impending launch in a couple of months from now.

I have reviewed your detailed answers to the previous questions and understand that you have put an impressive amount of thought and emphasis on community involvement, sustainability, as well as on comprehensiveness and quality of services.

I have just have a few supplementary questions:

1. Cost of services
In your response to Hélène, you had indicated that the cost of a bundled set of services for subscribers would be 58 cents USD.
a) What period does that subscription cost cover ?
b) Are there any limits on the amount of services (e.g. volume of water, duration of wi-fi access etc.) that can be consumed for this subscription
c) How are the subscriptions paid - in cash, via the M-Pesa mobile payments, other ?

2. Maintenance
The site plans indicate that Kibera will gain a wonderful new Town Center and set of services for the people living there and will be equipped with quite sophisticated technology.
a) What will the key maintenance activities be and what kinds of skills will be required to perform these activities ?
b) Will the Town Learning Center be able to train local people to perform the necessary maintenance activities ?
c) Are spare parts easily available locally or from neighbouring areas ?

3. Governance
The co-op structure seems to be well established in Kenya for community projects.
a) It would be very interesting to understand what are the key elements of the HNP co-op by laws that ensure good governance overall and particularly that the quality of the services will be maintained and that surplus funds will be re-invested. If there is a description of the community governance structure or a link that we can review, I think that it would provide very useful information for all members of the network.

4. Replication

I realise that this question may be premature, but I would assume that with the required financial investments and support from the necessary stakeholders, the initiative could be replicated to other communities in Kenya once you have completed your pilot.
a) Does the initiative depend on many specifics (e.g. the well established co-op structure) of the environment in Kenya or could it be replicated, with the necessary local adaptations, to other countries.

I look forward to your feedback and congratulate you on this visionary initiative.

Thank you.

Best wishes.

Rosemary.

Questions on Cost of Services, Operations and Maintenance, governance and replication

By Human Needs Project (HNP) Posted on Wed 07 Aug 2013, over 11 years ago

Rosemary,

In answering question #1, cost of services, our subscription costs are indeed 58 cents for the bundled services of water, sanitation and showers. That 58 cents is a daily subscription cost for a co-op subscriber, whether they use the service or not. This has been vetted with the community and they understand that if they are not in use of the Town Center (i.e. out of town vacation, etc.) they still need to be charged to sustain the Town Center with their daily subscription fees. As the business plan has defined, there is a walk-on component whereby people who are not co-op; subscribers but are community members, they can also use the facility at the same price point as subscribers and they can do the bundled services at 58 cents as well/day OR choose and select and pay accordingly. There are limits on the volume of water. Typically, it will be 2 jerry cans per family or 1 jerry can per individual. Rationing Wi-Fi access will also be set. We're awaiting to work out the exact numbers charged from our internet carrier but typically, as we have seen, it will likely be in 5 or 10 minute increments. For instance, currently in the community, 10 minute minimum charges cost 10 KSH, hence 1 KSH/minute.

The subscriptions are going to be paid through an MPesa system. Obviously, there will be times when MPesa will not be available for some subscribers and there will be a way to bring cash in at the point of payment into the Center. We're trying to work out a plan with MPesa on money transfer that is below market rates.

Regarding your question on maintenance, we are training the management group to be fully versed on all the activities required to maintain all the working systems. All the parts/pieces that have gone into the assembly of the Center are local to Nairobi and easily accessible. On some of the larger systems, there will be on going warranty programs for some of the key components such as the inverters, pumping systems, control systems, generator systems, battery back-up, etc. But daily maintenance will be performed by all co-op staff. We are quite aware that the complexity of the systems we're installing needed to have an easy maintenance program to receive the proper attention to remain functional. So in our waste water treatment system for instance, there will be easy to read flow meters that will indicate to maintenance people whether or not back washing, equalization tank blending, sand filter purging, etc. will be required. We did this since looking at that media in waste water and diagnosing its condition takes a trained eye. So we're using simple diagnostic flow meters to drive the maintenance requirements. We are hoping that some of our trained staff will stay on for a long period of time since it will be a job that the community will respect and admire and it is in these staff that we hope to train to the highest level possible. HNP-USA will have additional peer review of on going functioning systems, much like Blue Planet does with the idea "if it's broken, call us" concept. But, we're hoping that the daily operations and daily maintenance will be successful in maintaining operation. Our demand will be very high from the community and the community will come to expect service; hence, they will put pressure on the co-op to deliver and the co-op will want to deliver to remain in business. This way, entrepreneurship is key in this motivational circle (from customer to owner).

Regarding governance, I will be able to link to the current by-laws within two weeks since my next trip to Africa (this week) will be reviewing the second red-line of said document. Once I have this completely reviewed and organized, then it will become a useful document to all who are interested in co-op formation and particularly how we created the co-op to bring organization and enable the Town Center to flourish. Please be patient in this regard since we are in formation at the moment. The original co-op by laws have already been submitted to the Kenyan Ministry of Co-op (and accepted) but they are of the more common variety and we are customizing them as we speak.

In your question on replication, our effort is to scale up this entire program to many communities - not only inside Kenya but to other countries worldwide. This pilot project will create the proof of concept and also allow us to vet out the threats as well as enhance the good working parts. I believe that any community, no matter how disenfranchised they are or lacking in resources, can use this model to begin their steps forward towards an organized infrastructure linked with social benefits. It is a complicated assembly of moving parts - from infrastructure through social policies and co-op formations, including how to motivate, present and engage the local stakeholders. We have a consultant who is an excellent spec. writer, not only on construction but in social formation, who is crafting a spec. for us that we have written over the last two years of experimentation and putting our project together. Once we are completed, this document will also be shared. There's not a lack of need in the world for this project to resolve.

Thanks,

David

Questions on Cost of Services, Operations and Maintenance, governance and replication

By 1001 fontaines Posted on Wed 07 Aug 2013, over 11 years ago

David,

Thank you very much for such a detailed and comprehensive reply. I have already learnt a lot from all of the exchanges regarding your HNP initiative.

I definitely understand that it will take time to conclude the co-op agreement and hope that your next round of discussions on that topic go well. I look forward to a copy of the agreement once you have been able to finalise it, as I am sure that it will give us many useful insights and guidelines for managing a community project of this scope.

Very best wishes with the impending launch and I look forward to more exchanges after that.

Rosemary.

Questions on Cost of Services, Operations and Maintenance, governance and replication

By East Meets West Foundation Posted on Fri 16 Aug 2013, over 11 years ago

David:

I had a few follow-up questions to Rosemary's.

Replication:
What is your strategy toward expansion and replication? Do you hold a preference towards growing a presence in Kibera? If your proof of concept is found to be successful, would you prefer to test the model in a contrasting setting? This may be covered in the document that you're producing, so excuse me if this proves to be redundant.

Investment:
As the intervention is comprehensive, I would imagine this would require considerable up-front capital. How do you imagine this process occurring for future projects? What is the balance between funding with donations and investments from private partners?

Thank you

-Mark

Questions on sustainability and water qualty control

By 1001 fontaines Posted on Thu 01 Aug 2013, over 11 years ago

Dear David,

The Human Needs Project seems like a very comprehensive project, with a focus not only on improving access to water but also creating conditions for economic growth through revenue generating activities.
We do have a few questions on the sustainability of the initiative, for example:

- Will access to every part of the center and its components have a cost for local community members? Could you provide examples of service costs for public baths, toilets, Wifi platform and coffee house?

- The coop model is a very interesting approach. Could you specify the business model it relies on to ensure sustainability? Will it concern the provision of water only or other services too? How will the maintenance be organized and funded? Will people getting a job from the Center be encouraged (or requested) to invest in it? How will community members –simple service users- also take part in the cooperative?

- As the project is a very comprehensive one, including many components and innovations, is there a specific balance between income generating activities and purely social activities (with no revenue, sur as children sponsorship at school) ?

We would also like to know more about the quality control of the water throughout the project. Indeed, as often pointed out, transportation and storage conditions are critical to guarantee water quality at the point of consumption. In the case of the POD, what are the solutions proposed to users? Do they come to the water station to refill their own container? How is the quality of water ensured (regarding the possible use of unclean containers for example) ? What is the procedure for water quality control?

Questions on sustainability and water qualty control

By Bank-On-Rain Posted on Fri 02 Aug 2013, over 11 years ago

Welcome Connie and David to the Peer review where we all learn from each other.

Congratulations on your vision and the scope of your projects.

Helene focused already on a number of things I am interested in, meaning the sustainability of your project without requiring continuous funding to keep it going (so I am posting my questions in the same question stream )

I also would like to know more about your local partnerships and what the initial steps are to get a project of this size approved and started? Will local authorities help with the continuation/running of the facility? Funding?

The contamination at the" water" touch points, bottle filling, hand washing etc….. how do you plan to minimize this?

Have you considered RWH (rainwater harvesting and storage as a water source?)

What education is in place for the sanitation / hygiene components of your project? I believe this education component will contribute an important ingredient to the sustainability of the your vision.

CASUDI for BanK On Rain
The rest of our team is in Serra Leone right now reviewing and completing RWH projects at two schools and setting up a sustainable business related to RWH in the Freetown area. I assume I will be the only one of us commenting here.

Questions on sustainability and water qualty control

By Human Needs Project (HNP) Posted on Fri 02 Aug 2013, over 11 years ago

Caroline The good news about your first question in how to get a project like HNP launched is that we are now two months from completion. This journey has taken two years from when my co-founder Connie Nielsen and myself came up with the concept. Connie worked in Kibera on a movie and came home to San Francisco inspired to give back to the dynamic Kibera community and help them in a dramatic and transformative way. The project was conceived of quickly and plans were developed for execution as fast as we could design the working parts. We collaborated with a talented group of friends and colleagues and immersed ourselves into Kibera and the people who live there.
We worked closely with the locals and developed a strong level of communication and trust where we presented our project to the stakeholders in an open format, called a baraza. This open dialogue that was directed at what they needed was also calibrated by surveys that HNP distributed. The project program and the community were fused. The synergistic solutions that the Town Center offers will sustain itself by delivering an infrastructure of opportunity through a solid social fabric of self ownership and co-op governance. HNP is an ambitious undertaking and we are now close to the finish line,(see our web site HumanNeedsProject.org, to see current pictures).
Running parallel with the local introductions and community outreach we also worked with the Kenyan government , local district district managers and tribal leaders. This process allowed us to secure a land entitlement for the project and a operation lease for thirty years in the Kibera Community. The Co-op can also exercise a renewal of this lease as well as pursuing a land ownership process as part of the lease agreement with the County Of Nairobi.
HNP also established a Local HNP NGO status with the Kenyan government and put in place a local board and country director to help solidify our commitment to the project.
HNP also selected through a structured and community guided process a group of local community leaders that addressed and maintained, through an open dialogue, a direct conduit to the community and who later become the advocates for the project in the eyes of the government. This group called the Community Coordinating Committee(CCC), was instrumental in campaigning for the HNP Project and they were the strongest advocates which propelled the project into reality. The CCC, thirty strong, represents 80,000 people, and now this same group is in the midsts of joining our Co-op. This process was a grassroots inspired program that had strong goals in mind.
Connie and I are separately are in Kenya one week every 6 weeks, hence someone from HNP is keeping direct contact every 3 weeks over this last 2 year run. This continuity and love for the project has given the process a thread of integrity and trust.

RWH question- the rain water harvesting was considered but with the extreme fecal dust issue in the community we felt it too risky to pursue as it may introduce unwanted contaminants into our Town Center. We did tests of open source collection from rain and with the coating of dust on surfaces the water was quickly contaminated . I wish this was not the case.

Caroline I hope I answered all your questions, I know as you stated some were asked by Helene. Let me know if I did not. Thanks for the warm welcome look forward to more discussions. david warner

Questions on sustainability and water qualty control

By 1001 fontaines Posted on Fri 02 Aug 2013, over 11 years ago

Hello David,

Thank you so much for your quick response and all this information provided on the project. This really answers a lot of the questions we had with Helene.

The business plan seems a lot clearer regarding the cost of the service and sustainability. We absolutely agree on the importance of working with donated funds (whenever possible of course) to secure the initial implementation so as not to burden the beneficiaries at the launch of the program with debt (and this is actually the way we are working too on our project!). It would be really interesting to share the information on the final business plan once it goes through the next review as I’m sure it would be really beneficial to all the PWX members!

Thanks too for all the information on the training programs and Learning Center. I understand that the model is a "train the trainer" kind of program, where you sent local staff to take part in training programs in the States and who will then train the next generation. Is that correct? Is there anything planned to continuously improve the training as the project evolves, by bringing in other ressources?
How many people will actually be working in the Center once it is up and running?

Anyway, a warm welcome to you and Connie on the Peer Water Exchange platform and looking forward to echanging on our projects!

Aude

Questions on sustainability and water qualty control

By Human Needs Project (HNP) Posted on Wed 07 Aug 2013, over 11 years ago

Aude,
You are correct in saying that once the Town Center is up and running we will be training our trainees after the initial core has been trained by our in-house staff based on the curriculum we developed. Although, I will say that moving forward we will have academic, corporate and governmental educators coming to our site to instruct the trainees on new systems, regulations, compliance, trends, etc. This will be conducted on our on-site adult learning center. To be specific, Grundfos Pumps is already scheduling time with our trainees once we have the project running to bring them up to speed on new pump and control systems. We hope that this will be an on-going process and as trainees develop more skills, they can also become better teachers to the next generation coming up. We are signing up the trainees with a 2-year work contract so that the initial skill sets we're giving them will have to be used on our Center.

The academic collaborations that we are working with from UC Berkeley, Univ. of Nairobi and SEKU will actually develop into a certificate of training diploma the trainees will be issued once they successfully complete the curriculum. Success is defined as passing all the tests, attendance, socialization and being able to work with others in the classroom setting. It's a rigorous 6-day program. We've had very few drop out. They all collect a stipend for being in class since they cannot work at jobs since they have dedicated themselves to the training program. Once the Town Center opens up, they will be employed by the co-op. Their skill sets have already proven to be valuable in getting jobs since we have had many local corporations inquire into their future employment opportunities after they complete our program.

The initial staff that will be running the Center since it is a 7-day, 14-hour of operation, will be between 45-50 people. This will include the obvious absentee issues and standard vacations/family emergency leave. Hence, we're starting with a surplus of employees to pull from to ensure the Center runs smoothly.

Thanks,

David

Questions on sustainability and water qualty control

By Human Needs Project (HNP) Posted on Fri 02 Aug 2013, over 11 years ago

Helene
The HNP approach to using the co-op structure is based on a long time presence and acceptance of co-op's in Kenya. The goal of any co-op is mobilize and organize groups of people who by the fact of being organized in an economic and social fabric can mutually benefit from the collaboration, both socially and financially. HNP has worked with the Ministry of co-op's in Kenya and have successfully formed a licensed co-op and created the bylaws for governance including electing a board from the community that will chair the activities. HNP hired/ worked with teachers, lawyers, government co-op formation agents and our trainees to go into the community to educate, engage, organize and conduct an open election for the co-op to get formed. Banking systems are now in place and savings have been deposited by all co-op members. HNP's goal is to hand over the hard asset of the structure and its working infrastructure to the co-op after a period of time based on governance performance milestones being achieved by the co-op as set forth in the articles of formation, the by-laws and the co-op conditions . The the co-op will run and operate the Town Center as a business.
The OMP(operations and Mantainance Program) will be funded from the co-op subscription fees and the fees are set a a rate determined by the local marketplace metrics. In our case, our business model was reviewed by Haas School of Business UCB. The services that are bundled together for the subscribers are water, toilet, washing, wi-fi access, and showers. The cost is set at 50ksh(58centsUSD). This bundled cost represents a 40 percent savings from the current marketplace and for guaranteed quality level . This subscription fee from the co-op members coupled with walk-on sales to non members using an average of 10,000 visits per day, allows the Town Center to carry itself. The actual cash flow projections will at a minimum allow the Town Center to carry itself and once the program is going some models have produced a 8kUSD per month surplus. The final business plan is now going into the next generation review and HNP can share this once it is completed in a months time. A key note here is that the costs related to the building and set up costs to build and launch the Town Center are donated and the co-op is not saddled with any debt when they are given the structure. It was HNP's intention for this Pilot Project to aid and empower the community so through their motivation gain empowerment through good governance with the necessary financial tools to control access to infrastructure and social opportunity and not fall prey to large debt conditions .
HNP is not requiring employees to be members of the co-op but anyone can join if they desire. Since the community is larger than what the Center can service HNP has set up two co-ops where one is at the community level, a SAACO, and the community SAACO(savings and credit organization), then through a lottery process selects the Town Center Co-op. This allows equality and opportunity to all and once the Town Center Co-op is formed,(set at 4500-5500 total) then both the subscribers and the community can use the center as walk-ons, knowing that the subscribers have access to water, toilet and showers daily. The Community SAACO then can keep organizing and growing and if they reach a monetary threshold they can ask HNP to develop another Center for them, hence scaling up the infrastructure of opportunity throughout the community.
This is a quick summary of the co-op format and HNP will give access to more information that we have developed.

Water quality assurance program: The source of the Town Center Water is from a borehole that is at 1100ft deep. Our project is located in the Nairobi which has the characteristic volcanic formations that are also seen in the Rift Valley. Most notable during our drilling was that most wells in the Nairobi Kibera zone are set at 300ft, which when drilling we also encountered same water aquifers. These shallow resources are typically not the best in terms of throughput or quality and since I was involved in the drilling directives we went 3 times the typical depth where we developed a high quality resource both in terms of its chemical constituency and the throughput including a quick recharge.Well development also included partitioning off all encountered close to surface aquifers so HNP well would be a standalone presence at the lower depth and not down drain(potentially introduce lower quality resource into deeper aquifers), or effect any adjacent shallow well systems. Fluoride is slightly high(4.9ppm) based on WHO standards( 1.5ppm), and this will be treated before consumption. Our daily delivered amount will be 225,000 liters per day,(based on 12hr production cycle). The well is rated at 18 cubic meters per hour. HNP has a complete well, hydrology, well completion report and chemical report that was developed per the Kenya NEMA Standards.(see HNP website to access reports).
The well output will allow for a direct pressurized supply to all point of delivery loads and off takes in the center. There will be minimal storage, 2000 gallons that will be used for gravity back up, and this tank will have residual sterilization using chlorine that will be metered out through a flow meter system, all other POD's will be pressurized (expansion tank) direct from well through the water treatment system, then through a point of contact sterilization(UV) and then to end use. HNP wants limited held and captive water where stagnation or contact to outside contamination could occur(fecal dust exposure is high in Kibera). The testing of the water will be on a monthly cycle from at least two delivery points.
Container off take of water will be used in the standard 20/10 liter plastic jerry cans, . All jerry cans will be cleaned and sterilized using a chlorinated bath, where customers will bring back a used can, then HNP Staff will clean then reissue and refill for customer use. There will be a standalone room where all washing and storage of cans are prepared and the care and custody of the washing process, room surfaces, will be monitored as outlined in the training curriculum that the Staff is now involved with. This training will also cover the waste water, pumping delivery systems, energy systems, plumbing systems and filtration systems. The training includes tests and hands on education. The training of a competent staff and manager group is critical to the success of delivering and maintaing consistent infrastructure . HNP has committed to a complete training program that HNP developed and is locally administrated and staffed.

Social Programs- There are currently 30 to 45 students in training and students in school. The HNP model will allow for the continuance of the Town Center Learning Center to continue to develop the next generation of trainees coming in to learn to run the center and be supported by the co-op.(HNP USA has brought HNP trainees to University California Berkeley for selected training in the Enviromental Leadership Program) The mechanisms for this continuance of learning are going to be in the co-op by laws. As noted before ,HNP funded these programs, first with the goal that the trainees which will become employees of the co-op running the center will be supported by the daily income that the center will bring in from the community; walk ons and the co-op subscriber fees, and market place sales of green products. The computer center will also provide income into the center and they will charge a time use fee that is consistent with other market places options, except that the center will be fiber optic connected and have a consistent power grid hence better access and more productive use of resources. The center will also have teachers so the computer user interaction can be developed and skills can be taught.
If you look on our powerpoint attached all the services the Town Center will offer are listed.
The HNP Co-op by laws will insure that surplus funds are used to develop and maintain social services, maintain the workings and function of the center and surplus funds are not distributed until all co-op by law conditions are met, hence HNP through the co-op structure wants to insure to the community that its charter or mission statement is to serve first.
Helene, please inquire further if I haven't answered all your questions or perhaps sparked more. Thanks for the warm welcome and I look forward to our future discussions. David Warner