The Sagam village website presents daily activities that affect the lives of a people residing in an area in Siaya District, Nyanza Province in western Kenya. The area lies between the City of Kisumu on Lake Victoria and the Kenya/Uganda border. You can therefore easily access Sagam from Nairobi via Kisumu or even from Kampala by road through the border town of Busia. The area consists of four villages, Rabuor Ahono, Sagam , Mundhine and Sinaga. They all work together under the auspices of Rabuor-Sinaga Area Development Trust (RSA-DT).
The Chair of RSA-DT is Mr Ambrose Rachier, one of Kenya's most a prominent lawyers. Engineer Okello Rogo is the Secretary. He is the former Chief Engineer of Kenya Ports Authority and has since retired at home. The village branch of RSA-DT is Chaired by Eric Aweyo, a retired agriculturalist and tea expert. Mrs Mary Asiko is the Secretary. Mama Mary, as she is fondly known, has also retired in the village and currently runs the successful bottled water project, apart from other accomplishments. The runaway success of the village water program owes allot to her leadership of the Water Committee during the formative difficult years.
The Maseno-Luanda road shown in the map, is part of the trans-Africa road from Kisumu to Kampala via Busia. The Equator crosses at Maseno where the Maseno University main campus is located. There is a smaller satellite campus in Kisumu City. From Kisumu (400 Km from Nairobi, 5 hr drive or 1 hr flight), we travel 40 Km by road to Luanda where we branch on the right towards Siaya.
The first market place after Luanda is Rabuor (4 Km), which sits on the border between Western an Nyanza Provinces. This is also the entry into Siaya District and Rabuor-Sinaga area. Down the road from Rabour (5 Km) we pass through Sagam village to Sinaga which also borders Yala river and marks the lower, eastern margin of our area. On the right from Rabuor is Ahono area which stretches towards Yala, our Divisional Hq. From Sagam, you climb to the left for 3 Km to Mundhine village where the new Polytechnic is being constructed.
In terms of institutions and facilities, Rabuor is the highest elevation and site of our main water reservoir. From there, water is gravitationally piped to all the other villages and to secondary reservoirs and water sales kiosk along the road. The Spring water source is however in Ahono from where it is first collected in large underground tanks then pumped by electricity to Rabuor. Not surprisingly, water bottling plant is located in Ahono.
Rabuor/Ahono village is the biggest and has several churches, Ahono Primary School and Marenyo Heath Center. The Area Chief's office is situated next to the Health Center in Marenyo.
Sagam is the most centrally placed but the smallest of the villages. In it are is the local shopping center called Simbi, Sagam Community Hospital, Sagam Primary and Sagam Mixed Day Secondary Schools. There are several churches (Nomiya Luo Mission and St. Stephens Anglican Church) and a mosque. A community library is planned for 2005/06. The RSA Community microfinance Bank is located at Simbi Shopping Center.
Sinaga village lies further along the road and is home to the Police Post (community constructed), Sinaga Primary School and the well established Sinaga Girls High School. This is boarding school for 400 girls. St Andrews Anglican church is located in a valley by the roadside in Sinaga.
Mundhine village is the most difficult to access as it is up hill and has very poor rocky roads. It is home to Mundhine Primary School, Mundhine Dispensary and will soon be home to the Village Polytechnic.
Electricity and water is available in all the villages. Home based care for HIV/AIDS patients is provided in all the villages through a network of community based workers under supervision of the Matron Salome Sumba of Sagam Community Hospital. Each village has an orphan care program and women's activity group, all organized under the bigger umbrella of Rabuor-Sinaga Area Development Trust. The total population of the area is estimated to be about 15,000.
1 comment:
Hey!That was a nice blog post there,its makes us get a clear and more vivid image of our home village.I come from Ahono and studied at Ahono primary before I moved to Nakuru for further studies I resides in Nakuru.Am running a project here with some Americans friends of Kenya to uplift communities and it has been so successful and after reading this,I thought we could discuss and see if it can be adopted there.My email is; "joab.okello@yahoo.com or joab.okello@gmail.com"Anybody who would want to support my idea just email me and I will share the whole idea and see if its a good cause to go by.
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