PWW Project launched in Mulanje

 By Elias Banda

The Peter Wallenberg Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Project has been launched in Mulanje with support from Water for All, courtesy of Peter Wellenburg. The event marking the taking off of the water project took place on Thursday, 1st October 2015 at the District Water Office, where ADRA Malawi staff made  a presentation on the project scope to the District Executive Committee (DEC).  DEC members include all governmental and non-governmental agencies in the district, including the Water Department.  
While making a presentation, Enhanced Livelihood through Gender Empowerment (ELGE) Project Manager, Andiyesa Mhango said the PWW project goal would ensure that communities in the Traditional   Authority Chikumbu particularly in the targeted village communities have improved health and socio-economic wellbeing through access to safe water, sanitation and the adoption of positive hygiene behavior by the year 2018.

The PWW team in Mulanje

To  achieve this broader picture, Mhango told DEC that the project would increase community access to sustainable, potable water and environmental sanitation; reduce the prevalence of WASH –related diseases through hygiene promotion and environmental sanitation practices; increased awareness on hygiene and sanitation best practices including construction of sanitary structures in targeted public places.
Reflecting on the presentation, and while speaking on behalf the District Commissioner was  Mulanje District Water Development Officer, Edson Mchilikizo  commended ADRA Malawi and the donor partners for the timely project and pledged to support the water initiative at any stage of its implementation. He called on all relevant stakeholders in the district to rally behind the project in order to achieve positive results.
ADRA Malawi made the initial presentation to DEC members on the prospective water project in July 2015 when the organization expressed interest to drill and rehabilitate water points in the affected areas in Traditional Authority Chikumbu in the district.  Mulanje DEC nodded to the proposal and gave ADRA Malawi the leeway to proceed with the project.

DEC members listening to the presentation

Another meeting was held in August 2015 involving the District Coordinating Team (DCT) through which ADRA Malawi made consultations on key technical areas in the project implementation plan. The DCT recommended that the project would consider putting up disability- friendly structures in public toilets.All recommendations made during this meeting were incorporated in the project proposal.
According to PWW Project Coordinator MacDonald Kanjewe, the three-year project would target 19 of the 22 village communities where the ELGE project is being implemented.  Among other achievements, the project intends to reduce the time women spend when fetching water. An assessment conducted earlier revealed that many water points in the targeted area had more than 250 people each, against the recommended 250 people per borehole.
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 Perter Wellenberg WASH Project Background

In January 2015, Peter Wellenberg, one of the Swedish great industrialists died after a long and productive  life. His family has a unique position in the Swedish industry. Their sphere of influence includes many of Sweden's major global corporations. One of the international companies under their power is the Atlas Copco.  

Peter Wellnberg worked through Atlas Copco for 10 years in several countries in Africa including  Malawi. However, when he passed away, his children Jacob, Andrea and Peter suggested that those who wanted to remember Peter Wellenberg in a special way should donate to Water For All organization. Many people agreed to the proposal and donated money to Water for All  and it was recommended that the money would be donated to ADRA Malawi for  the water and sanitation project in Mulanje.

 

Water shortage causes high divorce rates- GVH Ngongondo

By Elias Banda
Group Village Head Ngogondo of Machinga has bemoaned   the increase of divorce cases in her area due to water shortage. The GVH said there was a strong link between water scarcity and fragile marriages because when  women spend more time fetching water, there was growing suspicion among men that their wives were cheating on them and based on the balance of probabilities, men always found grounds for divorce.
GVH Ngongondo said her indaba (village court) was flooded with divorce cases that were usually blended with hostility and suspicion among couples. The GVH said the number of divorced women was on the increase, hampering development efforts as single women were struggling to cope with prevailing economic challenges.

In extreme situations, people drink from rivers

A woman stressing a point during radio recording

Lukia John from Kamtetela Village said she was beaten twice by her husband on suspicion that she cheated on her husband when she spent 8 hours looking for safe water.  The matter was resolved after it was referred to the GVH indaba.
GVH Ngongondo said her area has 35 villages but with only two boreholes, forcing women to travel long distances looking for water. The few functional boreholes were characterized by long queues with women fighting for spaces.  In extreme situations women were forced to draw from open and unprotected wells where water was shared with animals and sometimes they found dead animals in the water.

Women learning how to be self reliant

Pishen Nampesya said it was a shame that nearly 50 years after Malawi got independence, people  in his area where still drinking in rivers and open wells.
But recently, ADRA Malawi facilitated recording of radio program where people used the platform to advocate for the provision of water by the government. During the community dialogue session that was recorded, community members engaged the duty bearer from the Department of Water Development to respond to the water challenge.
The Water Development Officer in the area, Bhahati Ngwiri pledged to report the mater to higher authorities for the provision of water facilities. However, chiefs asked for his contact number and his house for constant communication in case he failed to honor the pledge.
The recorded materials would be aired for the ADRA Malawi sponsored Zatonse Radio Program on the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC).  Zatonse Radio Program is supported by Denmark through the Action for Social Change Program to amplify community advocacy voices to influence positive opinion from duty bearers and service providers at national level.

When water means life

Story by: Sangwani Mwafulirwa

If water is life then he who gives water gives life. Since creation no form of life has existed without water, from human beings to the smallest of all living creatures, their existence depends on having access to water. Yet access to water will mean something very different for someone who gets water at the turn of a tap at home compared to someone like Chrisy Kilowe from Luwanja Village in Mulanje.

Chrisy has spent her 40-year life in Luwanja Village and the biggest challenge for her has been collecting water. Everyday she treks two kilometres to the neighbouring village where she draws water from an unprotected shallow well. A task which presents several dangers, dangers Chrisy is well aware of, having almost lost her unborn daughter of six months to diarrhoea last year.
However, Chrisy Kilowe is not alone. Her whole community faces many of the same challenges. The rainy season is particularly hard because all the mud and filth from uphill washes into the well. Households with no money to buy water treating chemicals have no option but to do their best with the dirty water, which poses severe health risks.

Thankfully, these problems will now be the tale of the past because an organisation, Water for All, has come to the rescue of the people by sinking a borehole in the village.

Water for All is an organisation founded by Atlas Copco employees in Sweden. Their aim is to provide clean and potable water to drought-prone areas of the world by drilling and digging water boreholes.

Water for All came to know of the problems in Luwanja Village through ADRA which has been implementing a three-year Women Empowerment Project (WEP) in the area.
According to WEP manager, Andiyesa Mhango the project was teaching people in the area about entrepreneurship, Rights Based Approaches and nutrition. Access to water has become another pressing issue for the project, because most women are being affected by limited access to clean and drinkable water.

“Water is a crucial component to women empowerment. Challenges of fetching water are robbing women of their vital time, time they could spend towards development of their communities and households.

“That is why we approached Water for All through ADRA Sweden. [Thanks to their support] we will be drilling in two more villages where they are facing the same problems,” says Mrs Mhango.
For women in particular, a borehole reduces the long journeys needed to collect water, journeys that start at 3 am every morning and that must be walked six times a day. It means that now women and their families do not get sick from diahorrea and other water borne diseases. A borehole gives communities more time and improved health to work on activities that develop their households and community.

The borehole for Luwanja village was handed over on Friday October 1, 2010 at a function which was attended by the Traditional Authority Chikumbu. She expressed her gratitude to Water for All and emphasised the need for communities to make bigger efforts towards improving the hygiene and sanitation around their homes, for example through the construction of pit latrines. These steps combined with clean water will make a greater impact on people’s health.

The Senior Environmental Health Officer for Mulanje Mr. Issac Jumma, stated that “only six out of 1o households in the village had sanitary facilities, which poses a huge threat to communities, especially through the coming rainy season.”

The crowd cheered in acceptance of this message, showing their commitment to improving the health and sanitation of their community. Already, as by requirement, the village has set up a water source committee to manage and maintain the borehole. The committee is responsible for collecting monthly contributions from the community to put towards the maintenance fund. A fence has also been constructed around the borehole to keep domestic animals away and people are being urged to guard the water source, to prevent theft of vital parts from the borehole.

In conclusion, the people’s joy and happiness could not be hidden. Their songs expressed it while their dancing demonstrated it. The event was a celebration of the gift of life provided to Village Luwanja, by Water for All, Sweden.

Water in Mulanje - Southern Malawi

The people of Mgumera and Mbwana, an area with over 7,000 people, have for a long time been having problems to access water. This problem has lead to use of unsafe water from streams and ponds and to high rates of water born diseases in the area. After assessing the situation, ADRA Malawi with funding from DANIDA through a project called Resilience and Capacity Building has drilled two deep wells costing $20,000.

Although the two deep wells are still not sufficient for resolving the water problem, it contributed greatly to improve the living conditions in the area, according to the Group Village Head, people especially women and girls were spending most of time fetching water which is far away. He thanked ADRA for providing water which is life.

The community dancing in celebrating the water when the pumps were installed during the water point training that was conducted by ADRA and line ministries

Author: Winston Chilonga,Water Coordinator,ADRA,Malawi

A soft toy in her hands

In May, Rohde Åkesson and I from ADRA Sweden visited ADRA Malawi together with two representatives for the Swedish organization Water for All. Our purpose was to learn more about what ADRA Malawi does to provide people with water. We spent about ten days visiting various water installations, and we soon realized that ADRA Malawi is doing a very professional and competent work. But the visit included more than that. We also visited some of the beneficiaries in a Women Empowerment project that ADRA Malawi is implementing in the Mulanje area, and that ADRA Sweden is supporting with money from the Swedish Mission Council. We did this in order to give our friends from Water for All a better understanding of what life is like for people in the villages of Malawi.

One of the visits made a special impression on us. We stopped outside an ordinary African house built from locally made bricks. A group of children were standing outside the house. Or, they were not really children. Another year and they would be called youth.

One of them was a girl who may have been about 13 years old. Her clothes were colorful but worn. They looked very bright in the weak evening light – and when she saw us arrive, her face broke into a smile that was even brighter than the fabric in her clothes. Though she was poor she seemed to have the ability to enjoy life.

The girl had a soft toy in her hands, a small elephant, and while she was talking to her friends she was stitching up the neck of the elephant. Andiyesa Mhango, who was our guide and travel companion, told us that the girl’s parents were dead and she and her four siblings were now living with their maternal grandmother. The grandmother had a small plot of land where she grew maize and other foodstuff, but the plot was not large enough to give the family all what it needed. They had enough to eat, but the crop was not large enough to give them any extra produce that they could sell in the market. So money was a constant problem. There was no money for clothes or school uniforms – no money at all.

Andiyesa explained that this is why the soft toy that the girl was stitching was so important. It was her key to a better future. Selling toys gives the family an extra income. Without that income, the girl’s grandmother would not be able to keep the girl at home. She would have to marry her off, probably to an older man looking for a young wife. A couple of years later, the girl would be the mother of one child and expecting another. And when she was 17, the man would probably leave her for a younger woman. In order to provide for her children she would then have to find another man she could live with. A few years later, when she was 24 or 25, she would be the mother of four children, HIV positive and soon dead in AIDS. This is what life looks like for many young women.

But this is not the way her life will be. After the girl’s mother had died, the grandmother joined the Women Empowerment Project that ADRA Malawi is implementing in the area. One of the things she learnt there was how to start an income generating project. Since Mulanje is a tourist area, she chose toy-making as her project. And this has changed the life of the whole family.

The family is still poor, but they have a small and steady extra income that gives them security they did not have before. Now the children will be able to go to school, and they will have a better future, a better life, than what their grandmother has had. And all of it thanks to the small toy animals that the grandmother and the children are producing.

The visit left a lasting impression on us all. It made us see how ADRA changes lives for the better.

Author: Per Bolling – ADRA Sweden.

Minister of Information participates in handover of boreholes.

The Honorable Patricia Kaliati, Minister of Information, underlined the importance of the water interventions that ADRA conducts in Mulanje. ADRA’s activities in the scope of the Integrated Health and Food Security Project provided 129 water points and a gravitational water system in two districts in Malawi.

ADRA Malawi recently officially handed over 21 newly drilled boreholes, 5 shallow wells and 25 rehabilitated boreholes to Mulanje District Assembly and the local community as part of the exit of the 3 year Danida Funded Health and Food Security Project (IHFS). The water points will now be managed by village committees with the support of the government water department through the assembly.

The colorful handover ceremony which was graced by the presence of the Ministry of Information who is also Member of Parliament for the area Hon. Patricia Kaliati, the Director of Planning and Development for Mulanje District and other officials from government departments and other NGOs. In her remarks Kaliati commended ADRA Malawi for development work the organization is doing in the area. She challenged the community to take care of the water points and fight against vandalism of the borehole parts.

According to the District Director of Planning and Development, water is the districts second priority and that the gesture by ADRA and DANIDA would be followed by expected care of the water points by the communities, led by the district assembly.

The project is in 2 districts and has in total sunk, rehabilitated or dug 129 water points and established a gravity fed water system which has 3 outlets into the community. Each water point serves about 450 to 500 people. Therefore touched the lives of about 60,000 people with safer water. Each water point has a committee of 10 people who have been trained in water point management, hygiene and sanitation.

As the saying goes ‘Water is life’. ADRA Malawi had through this 3 year project touched and improved the quality of life for about 60,000 people. The gains of having access to clean water can not be over emphasized. Not only will this important resource help reduce cases of water borne diseases caused by drinking contaminated water, but there are also socio-economic benefits are the amount of time rural women and children spend in a day collecting water from distant and often polluted sources is reduced and they can contribute more to other livelihood strategies.

Author: Thoko Mwapasa
IHFS Project Manager
ADRA Malawi

Water to Malamulo

Malamulo Adventist Mission Hospital is experiencing critical water shortage. The campus consists of the Hospital, a Medical School, a primary school, a boarding secondary school. Total numbers of water users at the campus is at the moment at 22,000 year with this including over 18,000 patients. The existing three boreholes are not adequate to supply water throughout the day. Coupled with other problems like the dam which was found to contain harmful chemicals and old pipe lines with frequent breakdowns. ADRA was requested to assist with this problem wish was possible due to the financial support of from the ADRA International office (http://www.adra.org/).
The first stage of ADRA’s intervention in Malamulo Hospital was completed after geophysical surveys were conducted and two sites for drilling were identified. Two borehole were drilled on the 19th and 20th to 21st November, 2008.
Next stages of intervention will include the installation of pumps, possible upgrading of the water storage or provision of a generator and replacement of the piping system conducting the water to the distribution at the mission site.
ADRA is furthermore assisting the Hospital by providing 104 mechanical beds with mattresses hopping to contribute to improved services provided to the patients.

Updated from Report by W. Chilonga – ADRA Malawi Water Expert

Water means life

When we arrive in the village, we see the new pump right in front of us. There are children all around it, happy children who are busy pumping water into basins and containers. They laugh when some of the water is splashed on their hands and legs. They know that water means life – and this well is giving them much water, much life.

But this is not the way it used to be in this village in the Mulanje area in southern Malawi. Up until about one year ago, this village had to rely on a well which is situated close to a small stream that runs through the area. Every litre of water that they needed had to be carried from that stream, and as usual, it was the duty of the women to provide their families with water.

The villagers tell me that they want to show me the well. “It is not very far,” they say, “in other villages, the women have to walk much further when they are bringing home the water.” So we set out along the road that leads from the village to the well. After a while I start wondering what the women mean when they say that it is not far. As a boy, I lived on a farm and I had to carry water to our animals every day, so I know how heavy it is to carry water. But I never had to carry it as far as this. And we just keep walking and walking, on and on …

At last we arrive at a steep ravine that has been created by the stream. The banks are muddy and they tilt sharply downwards, so it is not all that easy for an elderly and slightly overweight gentleman like me to manoeuvre my way down the slope to the stream. It is hot in the ravine, hot and moist. Ahead of me I can see a short pipe sticking out from the mud-wall. A small stream of water is coming out of the pipe. This is the well that has provided water for a village of some two thousand people. Until they got the pump, this was the only water source that they had.

Two women are filling their containers with water. It is a slow process. The women must have done this many times before, so they are patient and wait for the water to fill their vessels. But suddenly they look up at the trees above us. All the people around me suddenly become very quiet.

“There is a snake up there in the trees,” whispers my guide from ADRA Malawi. “It is a green mamba.”

I look up, but I cannot see anything. My untrained eyes cannot distinguish the snake from the foliage.

“Last year,” whispers my guide, “a girl was bitten by a snake when she was carrying water back to the village. She died.”

I shiver. I hope that the snake will find us uninteresting and disappear. And after a couple of minutes, the women start talking to each other again. The snake is gone. It has slithered off into the grass and disappeared somewhere along the path where we walked just a few minutes ago.

One of my companions tells me that some of the women have had to spend eight hours a day carrying water from this well. Many of them had to get up at 3am in the morning in order to bring home enough water so that the children would be ready and fed in time for school. But now the village has a deep well with a pump, and life has become different. The time that they had to spend bringing home water can now be used for other activities. It has become possible for them to start kitchen gardens and grow their own vegetables. This gives them more varied and nutritious food, and any surplus they get can be sold for cash. Now they can also set aside time for the adult literacy classes that ADRA Malawi has started.

The wells, kitchen gardens and literacy classes are all part of a project that ADRA Malawi is implementing with support from ADRA Sweden and the Swedish government. I am impressed with what I have seen. Just one well – and life has become so much easier for a whole village.

From: Per Bolling, ADRA Sweden

Water in Kalumba

Water is life, they say. Indeed clean water that is safe and free from disease causing organisms improves the health of women and children in the community by reducing incidences of diarrhoeal diseases and skin infections.
Miriam (27) in the picture expresses her joy and how the availability of safe water from a protected shallow well has changed her life. By reducing the distance and time taken to fetch water, women are able to do more household chores and are able to participate in other development activities including time to prepare nutritious food and feed their children

With the assistance from ADRA and funding from Canada, the community protected shallow wells. Fifteen water wells have been dug and provide safer and cleaner water. The aim was to reduce waterborne diseases such as Cholera and other gastro infections and to reduce the burden of women as a result of fetching water from sources that are very far. Water wells provision has also reduced the time that women spend when they go to fetch water from other water sources by almost half. This scenario has enabled women to fully participate and make decisions in other development activities for both the community and at family level.

Author: Dorcas Kanthenga

"Women empowerment starts with us"

Women Empowerment Project (WEP) started on 1st April 2007 with the aim of facilitating women empowerment through promotion of their rights, improvement in health status and implementation of self supporting income generating initiatives. The project targets poor vulnerable women. These include widows struggling to survive, those that are taking care of orphans and the chronically ill, the disabled and those that are denied access to resources for economic empowerment.

Main activities include;
Ø Trainings in Health, Water and Sanitation, Gender and Human Rights.
Ø Adult literacy.
Ø Home gardening and compost manure making.
Ø Provision of portable water.
Ø Goat rearing.
Ø Provision of maize mills for Income Generating Activities.


Picture above: Women Empowerment Project photograph of Traditional Leaders, Project staff and ADRA Programs Director Mr. Micheal Usi

One of the strong points in the project has been the positive response and support from Traditional Leaders. These are the entry point as well as custodians of tradition and culture. Some negative traditional rituals involving risky sexual practices contributes to HIV/AIDS infection rates. A strong tradition persists to maintain the low status of girls and women and this extends to marriage and throughout the life cycle. This contributes to increase in violence against women. These negative deep rooted cultures affects community development. With this background, the project first step was to sensitize and empower the 20 participating traditional leaders to fully understand and participate in fulfilling the objective in empowering women. This is working well because most village heads are in the forefront participating in development activities. The traditional leaders have been drilled on women’s role in community and importance of encouraging men to support the women empowerment initiatives. Once the leaders are empowered it becomes much easier to reach to the grass root. With time, there is hope that these deep rooted negative cultures will be a song of the past.

Community leaders in action:

Picture above: Village Headwoman Waruma and beneficiaries appreciating safe potable water..
Picture above: Village Headman Ng’oma and his wife in their home vegetable garden.

Picture above: Village Headman Namputu stressing a point during Gender and Human Rights workshop.

Author: Andiyesa Mhango

Access to safe water is key to a healthy life

ADRA IHFS project has established a gravity-fed water supply system from a spring source in Nseula Village, T/A Dambe in Neno District. The water supply serves a population of approximately 1085 people.

Construction of the water supply system started in September 2007 and it has taken the project about 7 months to complete the project. The process started with an assessment of the area by the Water Engineer from the Ministry of Water Development who also assisted in the structural designing of the project. After several sensitization meetings, the community mobilized and constructed the pipeline, but also molded bricks and collected raw materials like sand for the project. ADRA provided other materials like cement and pipes as well as the technical expertise.

The system is composed of an intake that was constructed down stream of the spring eye, about 859 meters away from the demand area, a transmission line and storage tank of 6 cubic meters. The end points are 3 communal taps which are now supplying potable water at about 0.5 litres per second on each tap.

Water quality testing and an environmental impact assessment was and the recommendations made from these assessments have been adopted by the project and community members responsible for maintenance of the system.

To ensure sustainability of the water supply system, a Community Based Management Committee (CBM) and 3 water point committees have been trained in various aspects of water point management and maintenance, as well as health and sanitation. The committees have agreed on a small fee paying system for them to be able to buy small parts to maintain the system. Nevertheless, the project will be handed over to Department of Water Development under the Neno district assembly for continued monitoring and support to the community.

The gravity water system has significantly transformed the quality of life for the people of the Nseula Village. Previously, they used to get drinking water from an unsafe point along the stream, which was potentially hazardous. According to the water engineers that have been involved in the project, if well maintained, the Nseula water supply can serve the area for a period of not less that 20 years without any major problems.

Author: Thokozani Mwapasa

Water in the border

Nseula Village, in the district of Neno, is located on the Southwest border with Mozambique. ADRA started the partnership with the village in the year 2006, and since then opportunities for development where created and the majority of the families have reach higher levels of sustainability, translated for example in capacity to send their children to school.One of the most striking achievements in this partnership, supported by ADRA Denmark and DANIDA, is the gravity feed water system that is providing cleaner water directly into the village. Other activities include supporting the local farmers with more resistant crops and improved grain storage facilities. ADRA is also providing technical expertise related to agriculture and nutrition and is conducting HIV/AIDS awareness meetings.

Many other challenges lay ahead in Nseula Village; ADRA is looking at the possibility of extending the water system, for another 500 meters, in order to reach the primary school, at the eastern end of the village. ADRA is also looking at building on local small scale irrigation, an initiative started by one local farmer; by upgrading it and extending it to become a system that will allow shielding the farmers from draughts. Without external support, draughts like the one experienced during the current year, increase the vulnerability of the families and may farther them into the cycle of extreme poverty.

May you wish to be a part of the efforts to contribute to the development of Nseula Village; you may direct your donation to the ADRA office in your country specifying the name of the village to where you wish to contribute.

Author: Emanuel da Costa

Highlights – Women Empowerment Project

Snapshots from the Women Empowerment Project:

Picture above: Women enjoying the fruits of home gardening.

Picture above: Project beneficiaries happy with portable water through donated borehole.

Picture above: Women taking an active role during borehole maintenance training.

Picture above: Gender and Human rights workshop in progress.

Picture above: The Country Director, Emanuel da Costa, and the Finance Director, Hopekings Ngomba, making a speech during Project launch at Waruma village.

Author: Andiyesa Mhango