Safe Water for a Penny a Day!

We are excited to play a small part in the safe water system that will serve the residents of Chitala. We've heard and seen presentations from staff at Water Mission headquarters in Charleston, but walking the project has really helped us to understand the scope of the work that Water Mission is providing throughout Malawi.

The Chitala community from Craig's drone

It's truly amazing how quickly Nixon and his team were able to bring this project together once funding became available.  They began the assessment last December.  That entails a lot of work surveying the needs of the community, determining whether there is a cooperative environment suitable to implementation and long-term sustainability, and engineering the system.  Once that was complete, they needed dollars to commit to the total build-out before work could commence.  So we waited...and waited...and waited.  And thankfully, in April the McKinnon family--American donors who had just completed three projects in Malawi--committed to three more, two of which (Chitala and Liwaladzi) needed towers.  It was game on!

The safe water system layout in Chitala.  Approximately 1 mile from end to end.

Ori holding a khasu

A lot of work still needed to be completed before the system could go live.  They began by notifying local authorities and assembling a water board from the local villagers.  Then villagers were asked to contribute some building supplies--like sand and block--and some sweat equity--all of the trenching for 3,600 meters of pipes.  You can't truly appreciate the scale of that until you see it from the air. These trenches were three feet deep and dug through hard dry clay with their local "khasu"--a rudimentary hoe that they use for farming work.  Men and women from Chitala participated in this effort.

The Water Mission staff dug the borehole and hit water.  The well was installed at a depth of 65 meters and outfitted with a Grundfos solar submersible pump.  The plumbers installed all of the pipe and connected the system to the borehole, the treatment building, the water tank and the tap stands.  The water was distributed to 10 points spread throughout the community including groups of residences and the primary school, each with two taps at a stand.  In addition the system was plumbed into four residences for health clinic staff and into the health clinic itself.

The importance of clean water in the clinic cannot be underestimated.  Until now, the clinic was using untreated water from a shallow borehole in the yard.  It had to be collected in buckets using a hand pump.  Contaminated water was used to clean medical implements, mothers and newborns resulting, of course, in increased infections and mortality.  In addition to relieving this problem, there will now be a reduced strain on the health clinic's resources and staff from villagers that need treatment for waterborne illnesses, so they can focus on other things.

The borehole for the new system

Charitable investment into the Chitala system totaled 90,387,000 kwacha, or $125,000.  We met two government officials from the Salima district—the district council chairperson and the village’s member of Parliament.  Both spoke to the very limited amount of funding they receive from the central government for rural water supply services.  Their annual budget for infrastructure totals just 5% of the funds that were expended by Water Mission on this one project alone and Water Mission has now completed four projects in this district and seventy in Malawi.  An amazing accomplishment in just 7 years, but the need is so great.  Water Mission Malawi currently has over 500 applications for systems.  Available government funds will most likely be directed to residents in larger cities who do not all have access to public water, so rural families will continue to suffer unless private, executable, sustainable solutions like Water Mission’s are provided.

Sam watching Ellis operate the hand pump at the market center.
Now these ladies can turn a tap on to fill up their buckets.

The new Chitala Safe Water System was designed to serve 4,300 villagers (or 262 households), conservatively.  Water Mission estimates a high daily usage (8 liters per day per person), but in their experience residents tend to continue to use untreated water for washing clothes so--at a yield of 60 liters per minute--there is plenty of volume to serve additional residents.  The water from the new Chitala borehole tested low for particulates, so filtration was not needed.  A chlorinator in the water treatment house eliminates all water borne contaminants with enough residual to even help decontaminate containers used by villagers to collect the water.  The water tank on our new tower has a storage capacity of 10,000 liters.

Water meters at each tap stand

Water Mission, together with the new Chitala safe water commission, establish a budget for short and long term maintenance of the system and determine what villagers must pay for usage to make the project sustainable.  For Chitala, it was determined to be 1 kwacha per liter, which equates to about a penny a day per person.  Incomes in a village like Chitala and Liwaladzi would average about $14/mo, so their clean water will be approximately 2% of their income.  Usage is metered at the tap stands and manned by members of the community.  Water income is used to fund the payment of monthly expenses--which includes paying local water board members who are trained to maintain the system—and deposited into a bank account for cover long term repair and replacement costs. 

Tap stand at the primary school

A well-maintained system should provide clean water to the community for over 20 years.

If you are interested in supporting Water Mission, please donate to them through our page on their website and help us reach our goal.  https://watermission.org/project-elevate/