The Chakana Water Project in Malawi

News Update - 21 July 2009. 

It's completed! And it's a case of shy smiles all round as the girls and the women came to gather their water supplies from the new water kiosk in the village centre at Chikana....sparing them long and constant walks to the previous supply kiosk over half a mile away. To a special helper in Sydney...Greg...many thanks indeed from the villagers of  Chikana!

Here's how the project unfolded

The role of the Australian AIDS Fund has been critical  in providing clean and safe water where it's desperately needed in different parts of southern Malawi......at Msema, Kambona, Nogwe, and Ndirande.... remote rural areas and  the outlying urban slum areas of Blantyre. The WATER page of this website... www.aids.net.au/aids-global-malawi-water.htm carries a full pictorial report on our major project titled "The Ndirande Major Water Supply Project", detailing as it does, the construction of 3 four-kilometre long pipelines from a mountainside water supply point to three 70,000 litre storage tanks (pictured above).

Above...A wall of taps at the Ndirande centre, fed by the 3 storage tanks

Upwards of at least 15,000 people are being supplied with a regular, safe supply in half a dozen rural areas where we've worked with our Malawian partners....and more than 10,000 others are being provided for in the Ndirande urban villages.

In order to reduce the huge congestion caused by thousands of people seeking a regular supply at our Ndirande centre where water supply kiosks have been set up , an 1,800 metre long pipeline has since been run out from the Ndirande centre to the MTABALIKA village where another storage tank will also be built. This will be a great help to all those who would otherwise have been obliged to make a long journey on foot, or on a bicycle or pushing a wheelbarrow, to obtain their daily supplies.

Now, in June 2009, thanks to a Sydney-based supporter, we've been able to fund the construction of yet another pipeline.....this time 1,000 metres long in another direction from the Ndirande centre to the village of CHAKANA. Here too a 70,000 litre storage tank will also be built. Hopefully, the project should be completed within a month, weather permitting!

This will allow an estimated extra 3,550 people to access the system....providing for a total of over 17,370 people.

The overall plan is best imagined as being like a spider's web...or a bicycle wheel...with the strands of the web or spokes on the wheel radiating out from a central point. Water purification chemicals are also being provided to ensure the safety of the water, both in the popeline and in the various storage tanks..

Our first photos just in from Chakana (June 11 & 20) show the villagers helping the plumbers in the early trenching works.

The pretty, bougainvillea-fringed  village of Chakana is the destination for the new pipeline that's snaked out from Ndirande and now being trenched beneath the dusty village track.

The Chakana village	Almost at the finish!	Ndirande in the distance

Zex Thambo in the trenches.

The trench snakes through the Chakana village, alongside the houses...with bundles of pipes brought up to be buried undergound as soon as the trench is considered deep enough.

The storage tank is narrow, but deep, capable of holding some 70,000 litres of water...and to which further storages can be added.