Water is life. Water links and maintains all ecosystems on the planet propelling plant growth, providing a home for species that live within it whether permanent and temporary from amphibians to reptiles to fish to mammals to birds and even insects. People also need water to survive. A human being can go for more than three weeks without food but not more than 3 – 4 days without water.

Safal Group – Africa’s largest producer of steel roofing and Provider of building solutions, unveiled the winners of the 2019 ‘Safal Eye in the Wild’ photography competition that seeks to promote sustainable conservation actions in Africa.

Twenty-eight-year-old Daniel Charles Msirikale from Tanzania, who is a freelance photographer, emerged the overall winner for his piece that showed (two young boys heading home from fetching water with a third boy pumping water from a borehole). He beat other entries from professional and amateur photographers and received Kshs 300,000 in cash prize.

Safal Group Chief Executive Officer Anders Lindgren said that while the competition highlighted the impact of water conservation it also celebrated humanity’s ability to overcome challenges and live sustainably.

“As a leader in our industry, we have invested over Kshs 30 million in this initiative so far which is our vision to raise awareness on alternative ways Africa can conserve and preserve the environment, in particular, our water resources. We believe that photography is a powerful medium of influence in the promotion of sustainable conservation actions in Africa,” said Mr. Lindgren.

The company also announced the donation of Kshs. 3,000,000 to the Red Cross Kenya to rehabilitate water facilities within flood-stricken areas.  

“One of our core values is caring for our communities and we are deeply concerned by what we are witnessing with the current rains. It is our hope that this donation will ease the access to clean water for the affected families,” added Mr. Lindgren.

The 2019 competition, themed ‘Every Drop Counts’ received a great number of submissions from Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. Kenyan Kamal Shah who emerged the Silver Winner received Kshs 200,000 prize money while Kenyan Anthony Ochieng took the Bronze Award with prize money of Kshs 100,000. Denish Ochieng a photojournalist with a Kenyan Media company, won The People’s Choice Award with his photo that depicted (a boy cooling down his head with high-pressure water from a tap) reaching over a million people online within a few days.

Anthony Ochieng’s Image which took the Bronze Award

Entries to this year’s contest were judged by award-winning wildlife photographer Gurcharan Roopra; Uganda’s Reinout Dujardin and Tanzania’s Hendri Lombard, who selected winners of the gold, silver, and bronze as well as the selection of the potential public award-winning images based on the submissions’ theme, message, and creativity.

“We were very impressed by the quality of submission and how they interpreted the theme by unleashing the power of visual expression to tell compelling stories of water conservation,” said Mr. Roopra.

The ‘Safal Eye in the Wild’ photography competition has been running for three years. Every year, one element of the ecosystem is selected to inspire the theme. Last year, the theme “Stop the Chop” focusing on Forest Conservation. The focus for this year’s campaign was Water conservation and the theme “Every Drop Counts”.

Regionally as part of Safal’s initiative towards water conservation, the company has introduced RainGain ©  a water harvesting system.

Conserve water, conserve life!