Water Blogged

Tagamenda Primary School is a government school found within Iringa rural district in Tanzania. The school has a total of 313 students (149 girls/164 boys/6 teachers) from nursery school to standard seven. As with many villages and schools in Iringa, the lack of safe water for Tagamenda School was a major problem. The students wasted a lot of time fetching unsafe water for domestic uses including drinking, cleaning, and cooking.

BEFORE:
Older students at Tagamenda are asked to bring a ten-liter bucket of water to school each morning, while the younger students are tasked with bringing five liters. They fetch this water from various sources along their walk to school, including old hand-dug wells and shallow creeks. In addition, the students waste class hours later in the day fetching water which negatively impacts their school performance. Teachers often escort the younger children, missing time in the classroom as well.The streams and other water sources around the village are shared with livestock and are usually very polluted. Students typically end up spending more time fetching water and recovering from waterborne illnesses than they do studying. The school desperately needs 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 Tagamenda Primary School. Our implementing partner, St. Paul Partners (SSP), successfully 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.

SSP representatives traveled to Tagamenda Primary School and worked with the school administration to identify a suitable location for a shallow water well that would have a hand pump. This 30M deep well was drilled, flushed, and tested to the standards of St. Paul Partners. The project included the furnishing of all materials, labor and supervision required during drilling. To ensure the sustainability of the project, WASH training was conducted at the Tagamenda Primary School. Students and staff were trained on how to use the hand pump and to ensure its sustainability. This training aimed to strengthen the school’s and village’s sense of ownership towards the project. The school leaders promise to take good care of the well for many years to come.

Thank you to the following for making this possible!