Africa's First Rain Harvesting Building Set to Open this Month in Kenya's Central Highlands

A unique secondary school campus, conceived and designed by the non-profit design and innovation group PITCHAfrica, the designers of the award winning 'Waterbank School' in Kenya, named 'Greenest School on Earth' in 2013, opens this month at the Endana Secondary School in Laikipia.

The 'Waterbank Campus' comprises 4 unique, low-cost, rain harvesting building types invented by PITCHAfrica, and termed 'Waterbanks' because of the building's capacity to harvest and store high volumes of water at low cost, providing a year round supply. The annual harvesting capability of the Campus is in excess of 2 million liters of water in a semi-arid region. The Waterbank buildings provide clean drinking water to the students and irrigation to the conservation agriculture plots that form a patchwork across the campus. The centerpiece is PITCHKenya, PITCHAfrica's rain harvesting 5-a-side football and volleyball stadium with seating for 1500 people and home to the Samuel Eto'o Football Academy. The structure, that houses classrooms and an environmental education center, has an annual rain harvesting and storage capacity of more than 1.5 million liters. Other buildings include a 'Waterbank Dormitory' for Girls, a 'Waterbank Canteen' and 'Waterbank Latrines', building prototypes developed by PITCHAfrica to meet essential water needs while addressing fundamental issues including sanitation, nutrition, gender equality and health. Additional structures include rain harvesting boys dormitories and staff housing.

320 million people on the African continent and 1 billion worldwide, still do not have access to clean drinking water, yet the majority of these people live in regions where it rains more than 600mm (2ft) a year. Lack of access to water causes ill health and conflict worldwide. PITCHAfrica founder, Jane Harrison says, "Integrating harvesting, storing and filtering of rain into school community buildings supports communities in becoming increasingly self reliant for their water needs. This is possibly one of the greatest catalysts for change that a community can have. Bringing football into the mix brings passion, an attentive audience, bridging differences. This can make the desire to model peaceful collaboration and share knowledge about sustainable environmental practices a reality, while providing students with an environmentally engaged education, healthy food and clean water."

The project has been implemented through a partnership between PITCHAfrica and the locally based Zeitz Foundation and school community with sponsorship provided by international star footballer Samuel Eto'o's private foundation, the Cameron O'Reilly family, Guernsey Overseas Aid, and Ol Pejeta Conservancy. The Laikipia Unity Program (LUP), a football league with a strong environmental focus, initiated by the Zeitz Foundation, will allow the 'Waterbank Campus' to have an impact across the region, reaching more than 50,000 people.

Jochen Zeitz, of the Zeitz Foundation says, "PITCH offers an innovative approach to addressing one of Africa's most pressing problems, provision of clean drinking water; whilst providing urgently needed sport facilities. This makes it a win-win proposition, good for health and good for the environment. I'm happy to be able to support the first PITCH in Africa."

Source: http://pitch-africa.org/