Access to safe clean water remains a fundamental service for improving health and quality of life for all human beings.
Yet, to so many communities in developing countries, access to a safe clean water source remains a farfetched dream.
These communities rely on dirty scoop holes as sources of drinking water.
Malawi branch of Heart to Heart International, with funding from KOICA,
has supported construction of 12 Boreholes fitted with Afridev hand pumps at Machinga District in 2020.
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However, sustainability of these water facilities remains a challenge in many communities.
This is because they lack managerial knowledge and skills necessary to fix broken down Borehole hand pumps.
Heart to Heart Malawi supports establishment and training of water points committees,
which are the community representative groups of women and men,
who facilitate sustainable management of a community or school water point.
Each of the 12 water point committees was trained for 5 days in Community Based Management (CBM).
Community Based Management is a strategy to achieve ownership and sustainable management of community water sources.
During CBM training, communities were trained in collection of user fees for buying hand pump spares,
paying for services and accountability and where they could buy hand pump spare parts.
They were also trained in technical parts of an Afridev hand pump
so they can fix it when it breaks down and also trained in how to keep hand pump surroundings clean.
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Government extension workers from Ministry of Water Development,
Ministry of Health and Ministry of Gender and Community Services facilitated the training.
Water point committee members felt very happy because they did not only get a new Borehole
but were also trained in how to sustainably manage it. Both women and men
left the training ground feeling very confident that they would be able to repair any broken part of their Afridev
hand pump and sustain it over a long period of time. “We will ensure that we pay for spare parts,
repair our Borehole when it breaks down so that our unborn grandchildren also access water from this Borehole,”
said one of the women participants.
HtHI is hopeful that trained water point committees will be able to sustainably
manage their water facilities over a period of twelve years.
This will ensure value for money for this grant from Korean People’s taxes.
* As part of the Korea International Cooperation Agency‘s public-private partnership project,
the HtHI Malawi branch is carrying out a WASH improvement project in Machinga district in Southern Malawi
from 2019 to 2021, and has been carrying out activities in various fields, including improving drinking
water and sanitation conditions, improving hygiene awareness,
supporting preventive goods and medicines, and strengthening stakeholder capabilities.
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