Barclays Sand Dam Expedition – Kenya, September 2026

Sand Dams Worldwide supports communities in drylands to transform their own lives with sand dams and climate-smart agriculture; in turn, empowering themselves to achieve lifelong access to water and food.

Barclays and Sand Dams Worldwide are hosting an expedition to southeast Kenya in September 2026 for volunteers to support community members from a self-help group to build a sand dam.

Across drylands globally, water scarcity is widespread. Women and children can spend 6-12 hours a day collecting water, often from unclean sources. Climate change is exacerbating the problem, leading to increasingly severe droughts.

Sand dams offer a solution. A sand dam is a nature-based rainwater harvesting solution built across a seasonal riverbed that lasts upwards of 60 years, and captures up to 40 million litres of water; enough year-round water (stored safely from disease and evaporation within sand) for over 1,000 people, replenishing every rainy season. 

Sand dams mitigate the effects of climate change and drought. They raise groundwater levels, promote vegetation recovery, and restore environments. Coupled with climate-smart farming training, families can grow enough food to eat, store and sell.

Watch here to see how a sand dam can transform lives and land:

Any fundraising will go towards the construction of a community's sand dam, helping transform their lives and land. Women and children will have more time for other work including farming, and children will be able to attend school more often. With water to irrigate crops, farmers will be able to produce a more reliable supply of food and income for their families, and in turn, lift themselves out of poverty.

The need for this project is becoming increasingly urgent, therefore in the event that not enough funds are raised, Sand Dams Worldwide will fulfil the shortfall through alternative funding sources, such as trusts and foundations. Any funds raised will go towards the cost of building the sand dam. Any surplus funds will go towards providing further support for the community such as land management training and farming support.

Please donate what you can today to help a dryland community transform their own lives and land with a sand dam.

Here are some ways in which your donation could be spent:

• £30 could provide a community with 4 bags of cement for their sand dam 
  
  
• £50 could provide a community with a roll of barbed wire, to reinforce and strengthen their sand dam during construction 
  
  
• £110 could provide a set of 25 metal shovels needed to mix cement

Click here to watch interviews from a previous expedition