Tanzania: Water Access Updates from the Field

Many thanks to Stephanie Vickery and Brandon Cohen for putting together the paragraphs I'm simply pasting below. And thanks to Stephanie, Brandon, the All People Be Happy Foundation, and the many, many other Amizade volunteers and essentially good people who are volunteering, serving, and extending themselves to build a better world.

The community has decided to shift gears in their approach this year, and are using Amizade/APBH volunteers and funds in three new ways: (1) quality of construction (2) quantity of water-drinkers, not water-tanks (3) use of family labor and local materials. The real big news is in the construction of the Chonyoyo Water Tank, which will soon be able to provide hundreds of people with year-round access to clean water!

Chonyoyo Tank:

Prior to the commencement of the 2010 Amizade spring semester program in Karagwe, Tanzania in Spring 2010, Amizade signed a partnership with Mavuno - the leading water tank experts in the district. This partnership has yielded a significant amount of materials (such as cement) and volunteer labor to allow for the construction of a massive, 300,000 L water tank in the village of Chonyoyo. The manual labor that has gone into this project is almost unbelievable: a hole, deeper than 5 meters, dug entirely by hand! The gutters feeding water into the catchment area run along the roof of a very large, food storage building which is also approaching completion. The plan is for this storage structure to enable farmers to transform their wasted surplus into profit, and to provide food for purchase during the rainy seasons- after harvest has long passed and people are struggling to put well rounded meals together. The vision also involves the purchasing of communal farming machinery to be stored at the building. The water from this project will provide an incredible amount of relief for the community in the very near future, literally providing several hundred people with access to clean water, as well as nurturing the unfolding of the master plan: 

Working in conjunction with Amizade staff, Mavuno recently sent an application to the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania for funds to build a dormitory with the capacity for 240 female students at the secondary level. Funds have already been secured through the relationship between Mavuno and German Engineers Without Borders for two smaller tanks which will provide the dormitories with water. Meanwhile, the huge tank Amizade/All People Be Happy Foundation has helped to fund, will provide water not only to community members in the village, but will also meet the needs of what will be the teacher's quarters and the administration building (set to follow the construction of the the dormitory.)

Rukole Tank:

For the first time, Amizade is embarking upon a family sized water tank made of all local materials! With the expertise and direction of Mavuno, which has installed nearly 500 water tanks since their initial tank in 1993, the spring semester group and Joseph Baraka of Mavuno have worked together to select the recipient of a 6, 285 L tank. This is more than twice the size of the 3,000 L plastic tanks Amizade and All People Be Happy Foundation gifted in the past. The model that this NGO employs begins with referencing its list of applicants who have applied to Mavuno specifically for a water tank. After visiting three applicants and assessing the composition and needs of each family, a 60 year old woman by the name of Verdiana, and the three orphans she is raising in the village of Rukole, were chosen as this semester's beneficiaries. There are two young boys, Franky and Faston, ages 2 and 3, and a 7 year old girl, Bertina, enrolled in her first year of primary school. The water that is used by this family until the tank is completed and filled with rainfall, continues to be fetched from a natural source which involves one heck of a journey. The trip is typically made one to two times per day, taking 3 hours for each roundtrip, and involving mountainous terrain which would be challenging for anyone- especially for very young children and an elderly woman like Verdiana. 

Amizade has provided the funds for cement, gutters, nails, and labor costs, while the family has gathered stone, sand, water (fetched with the help of neighbors) and aggregate. This model has been proven to foster a sense of ownership and responsibility, and is a fertile avenue for direct empowerment as it engages the families in the installation of the tank, and enables them to see that in addition to receiving this assistance, they are capable of improving their own situation.

If you want to make a difference and support this effort, take part in the 3rd Annual Water Walk for Women's Rights in Morgantown or Pittsburgh, take part in a service-learning course or volunteer program with Amizade in Tanzania, or simply donate directly.