Water Blogged

Ngongwa Primary School is located in Kilolo district, Iringa, Tanzania. The school has an enrollment of 248 students (120 girls/128 boys) and 10 teacher/staff members. As with many villages and schools in Iringa, the lack of safe water for Ngongwa School was a major problem.

Several times throughout the school day, students were forced to walk over 2 km’s to fetch water from various unsafe sources around the village. There is also an old hand-dug well in the village which is dangerous and close to collapsing. Students typically spent more time fetching water and recovering from waterborne illness than they did studying, which led to poor performance on their exams. The school desperately needed access to safe water in order to meet their needs for drinking, washing hands, cooking and cleaning.

The overall objective of this project was to provide access to clean water for the students at Ngongwa Primary School. Our implementing partner, St. Paul Partners (SSP), installed a borehole well on the school grounds. This will ensure students have access to enough safe water which will lead to more time in the classroom studying. Plentiful safe water will also have a significant impact on the health of the students, teachers and neighbors around the village.