Excellent! - excellentdevelopment.com

On 9 March 2010, an eight-strong team from the law firm SJ Berwin travelled to Kenya to spend a week living and working with the Wendano wa Ngomeni Self Help Group, one of the seven self help groups the company is supporting by choosing Excellent Development as its Charity of the Year.

The team not only funded the trip themselves, but by the time they arrived in Kenya they had also doubled their fundraising target of £8,000 to pay for the sand dam they would work on. The extra funds they raised will enable work on further projects to improve food production and incomes.

I am Alexandra Oatham, Excellent Development's Fundraising Development Manager and I travelled to Kenya to accompany the team and make sure they got their hands dirty.

I must admit feeling slightly apprehensive about how the group would take to their surroundings in Kenya. They were not going to experience Kenya from a comfortable hotel and they certainly wouldn’t be given much time to relax. In fact the experience promised to be quite the opposite of what most would consider a holiday and I had to hope they were up for it.

I soon discovered my doubts had been misplaced. In fact I couldn’t have asked for better travel companions. From the moment we clambered into the matatus awaiting us in Nairobi I felt a sense of adventure from the group that even the 3 punctures and 5 hour journey we endured on dusty potholed roads could not quell. But most of all, the team very quickly proved their enthusiasm to take on the challenges of the week and their determination to make a difference to the lives of thousands of Kenyans.

We arrived late in the afternoon in Kalawa village at a collection of small concrete rooms that would be our home for the week. Our hosts, the Wendano wa Ngomeni self help group and their children, who had waited for most of the day for us to arrive, all greeted us singing, dancing and waving with excitement. Emotion showing on their faces, the team hadn’t expected the extraordinary welcome we received and it was clear from our arrival that this was going to be a week for both the team and the community to remember.

Wendano wa Ngomeni group members first came together in March 2008 with the shared vision to improve their water supply and transform their environment. They have one sand dam already, but their 36 members’ homes stretch along the long and winding Ititu river channel. This second dam, the one the Berwins had come to build, would bring a permanent supply of clean water close to the homes of farmers living further upstream and to around 1,200 people living locally.

We spent the first half of the week moving piles of sand and mixing cement with shovels, carrying rocks and mortar and lugging timber by hand under the blistering sun, encouraged along by Kamba songs and cheers. The amazing sense of community spirit and the SJ Berwin team’s enthusiasm made sure the work was completed swiftly and made everyone feel part of something special.

Over the second part of the week we enjoyed some more relaxing activities, including a community football match. We also met with the members of other self help groups, visited their sand dams, farms and tree nurseries too, seeing what the farmers had achieved thanks to the benefits brought by their sand dams.

At the end of our week we returned to Nairobi exhausted and inspired. The team had worked hard, laughed and lived alongside people determined to take charge of their own development and make a better life for themselves and their families.

“It was truly amazing experience - a unique and inspiring insight into the lives of people who are determined to solve their own problems and build a better future for their children. We were given an incredible welcome, and the friendship and hospitality we encountered was, at times, overwhelming.” Simon Witney, team leader and partner at SJ Berwin

Only three days after our return, rains filled both dams with water. With a little more rain and a little time the dams will become mature sand dams – sand in the water will sink, creating a reservoir which protects water from evaporation and filters it clean. The communities will save time from their daily water collection duties and focus instead on growing enough food to feed their families and provide income for basics like medicines and schooling. The team from SJ Berwin came to Kenya to help make a difference and in one week they certainly succeeded.

Read the team's own account of their trip here.