Rehabilitation of 12 boreholes in the Deka Area, sponsored by the AFAS Foundation.
From 17 November to 12 December 2022, Albert and Ellen Nijland visited several projects in Zimbabwe on behalf of Mpilo Foundation. It was a successful trip in terms of Mpilo Foundation’s core business: water. The most important project carried out was the Infrastructure Development Plan for the Deka community, which has been written about in a newsletter. In the Deka area (along the Zambezi), 12 wells were rehabilitated (restored to good condition). At the 12 rehabilitated wells, food gardens will be established.
Prior to visiting any potential new projects (for instance, schools, villages or clinics), communication will be established with key persons for carrying out the project. For villages, this usually means the village head. Additionally, we also try to contact the regional councillor, representing the Rural District Council. This is important for acquiring permission to drill.
Gift Sanyamahwe and Belinda Malandu have been mapping and assessing a large number of boreholes in need of repair or rehabilitation. Some of those boreholes are beyond rehabilitation and unfit for further investement of resources. Reports have been written by Gift, accompanied by technical reports by Belinda. To assess the quality of these technical reports, we have presented them to Mr. Craig Goby en Mr. Richard Bridges, both owner of drilling companies whose services we have used in the past. They were very positive, judging the reports to be very good and useful.
Initially, we expected the rehabilitated boreholes to provide clean water to about 2,000 people. Due to the many recent contacts with communities, this number has to be adjusted upward to over 4,400 people! In carrying out the project, we had a large financial windfall. The casings of the 12 boreholes turned out to be in good condition, which made new installation or replacement obsolete.
The freed-up funds made it possible to provide the communites of Chidobe BH34 and Chidobe BH36 with new boreholes. Both boreholes were provided with top to bottom casing en have a yield of more than 5,000 liter per hour. This means that over 1,000 people have gained access to sufficient amounts of clean drinking water. A financial windfall put to good use, then.
In total, more than 5,700 people now have access to clean and sufficient amounts of drinking water. Mpilo Foundation will remain involved with the communities, also during the subsequent development of local food gardens, supervised by Agritex.