Water tanks

Do you remember my first ChipIn donation tool aimed at raising money for water tanks at the School of St Jude? That was last year. It was prompted because the new classroom buildings at the School did not collect rainwater from the roofs, instead the gutters just drained to the ground.

2006 classroom building at Moshono campus

Well, we are pleased to report that the new boarding school buildings at the Moshono campus are being fitted out with water tanks.

2007 boarding school buildings at Moshono campus

When money is limited, things that are important don't always make it to the top of the priority list. In 2006, the School spent US$8,200 drilling new bores to ensure a reliable water supply. These rainwater tanks will add to the supply of safe drinking water available to the School.

Thanks to the support of many people around the world, the School of St Jude is able to provide good facilities so that academically capable children from the poorest families can get an excellent education.

I can’t help but encourage you

What is ‘normal’ for me? Whatever it is that is normal for me becomes the entirety of the world I live in. I tend to screen out other things – they are ‘out there’ or ‘over there’; they are less real than my normal world. My sense of ‘normal’ defines the horizons within which live.

With my interest in the School of St Jude, I find that my horizons of ‘normal’ are expanding. Suddenly a new horizon appears over the edge of the old horizon. I can now name all the countries in Africa; I have learnt to place each one on the map. I know the issues and I know some of the stories. I have become an activist.

I can’t help but encourage you to visit The Guardian newspaper site that is presenting news about the upcoming G8 meeting in Germany in June. They have all the regular news stories about the event, including a piece about the 7.5km security fence that will be built around the resort town where the meeting will be held. This touched my interest because of debate here in Sydney about the silliness that is likely to occur in Sydney later in the year when the APEC meeting is held in the city centre. With current security concerns, it seems very stupid to hold these high profile meetings in major cities. At least in Germany, they are closing off a regional town rather than a major city centre!

The surprising thing about the Guardian site is that they are doing more than reporting the odds and ends around running the G8 meeting – they have taken a deliberately activitist position by presenting the stories of eight African women, each one with a key message for the G8 meeting. Now this is an example of the press REALLY doing its job. They are making the news, as well as reporting the news.

Check out The Guardian site for the stories of the eight women – especially the story of the Tanzanian nurse, Sabina Nicholas, whose four daughters walk miles to get 10 buckets of water in the morning and again in the evening for their household of 14 people. This is because the water utility failed and their district no longer has running water, so they have to buy it by the bucket from trucks.

So, I can't help but encourage you to expand your horizons, redefine 'normal' and live in a whole new world.



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Update on water

The Australian government has announced that the Murray-Darling water system, one of the biggest river system in the world, has run out of water. Unless there is good soaking rain widespread across the catchment in the next six weeks, there will be ZERO water allocation for farm use or for environmental flows across the whole 2,700km length of the catchment. The only permitted water use will be drinking and sanitation water for the towns and villages. The Murray-Darling contains 42% of Australia’s farmland and produces 40% of the nation's food. So you can see what is at risk.

Tanzania also knows the burden of drought. A young volunteer with the Peace Corps in Tanzania writes –

The poverty is crushing, pervasive and absolute. For me, the image that captures life in rural Africa is women carrying buckets of water on their heads. This single image is deceptively simple and genial. In fact, it is the figure of women walking, shouldering these heavy burdens, that most fully captures the poverty, the suffering and the culture of rural life.

Driving into a village means passing women and girls lining the road either on their way to the well or returning from it. These water sources can be 5-6 kilometers from the village and these women must make this journey twice a day. Often, this trip can take four hours round trip. Imagine walking 3 km in the morning, making the return trip with a full bucket of water, then, using that water for all the work of laundry, cooking, and cleaning, only to have to walk those same 6 km again in the evening, often returning after dark.

Girls from the Girls' Secondary School in Korogwe carry buckets of water to the garden: Water Wise Schools

Anthea, an Arusha local, has commented that she never sees students from St Jude's carrying water, unlike students at most other schools. It seems to be a special privilege that kids can go to school and actually spend most of their time learning instead of labouring!

In her talk at the book launch, Gemma gave an update on the School’s efforts to guarantee a reliable water supply that I blogged about here. She said that on their sixth attempt, at around $15,000 for each attempt, they have found water at 95 metres. Our ChipIn contribution will help ensure good water supplies for the school. As Gemma said,

It doesn’t matter how much you give. $10 will buy a bag of cement and that will lay two courses of bricks in a wall that will serve generations of kids.

So, as you stand under the shower tomorrow morning, spare a thought for the women and girls in Tanzania who carry buckets of water for kilometers every day. And be glad that your contributions to the School of St Jude are giving some of the smartest girls in the Arusha district the chance to break out of the relentless cycle of poverty. No wonder they are glad to come to school on Saturdays.



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Chipin donation for water tanks

Thank you, thank you to everyone who contributed towards the $120 for water tanks at the School of St Jude using the ChipIn donation tool on this website. The money has been forwarded to the School and I’ll post pictures of the new water resources when I get them – maybe after our September visit, so don’t go holding your breath!

Drilling for water

To connect with World Water Day on 22 March, ABC Local Radio is running a water awareness campaign called The 40 hour Drought. Listeners are encouraged to commit to using only 40 litres of water across a 40 hour period and to experience what it is like to live with a limited amount of water.

I have blogged here and here about the drought in Tanzania last year that brought the country to its knees when the hydro electricity failed and power was rationed to just a couple of hours a day.

While the rains have come, the local village water supply can’t meet the growing needs of the School of St Jude with its 870 children, plus 170 staff, plus building operations. This is why raintanks are needed at the school (see the Chipin tool on this page which is raising money for rainwater tanks).

New classroom building – gutters and downpipes, but no water tanks.

This new classroom building was finished in January this year, just in time for the new school year and an extra 150 students. There was not enough money to install water tanks, so the downpipes drain to the open ground.

Right now, the School is also drilling for a new borehole, praying that a new water source will be found to supplement the current supply.

Hoping to find water in the new borehole

In Tanzania, one of the poorest countries in the world, everything is harder! You don’t just open a school and focus on education policies, teacher recruitment and curriculum. You also drill for water and install water tanks. What’s next? Solar power?

Keep in touch, learn about it, and lend some help.



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World Water Day 2007

The World Bank Water Week 2007 is just over, and the UN World Water Day is coming on March 22.

'Coping with Water Scarcity' is the theme for World Water Day 2007. This year's theme highlights the increasing significance of water scarcity worldwide and the need for increased integration and cooperation to ensure sustainable, efficient and equitable management of scarce water resources, both at international and local levels.

Last year, drought in Tanzania made water a key issue for the School of St Jude. Water was severely rationed, and volunteers learned the value of buckets for all kinds of uses.


Take a look at this useful UN website about Coping with Water Scarcity, and discover how poor countries and poor people are affected by lack of safe water supplies.

My regular readers will know that I love maps — you only have to browse through a few posts to pick that up! — so here is a GREAT map from Maplethorpe that shows worldwide access to water and sanitation. Tanzania is rated as high risk because only 73% of people have access to safe drinking water, and only 46% have safe sanitation.

To take immediate action, you can click on the Chipin widget on this website to make a small donation that will help secure safe drinking water for the School of St Jude — fighting poverty through education.



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Esuvat

Meet Esuvat, who was sponsored to come to the School of St Jude in 2004 by a Rotary Club in Australia.


Esuvat lives with her family in a poor village.


Like everyone else, she does her share of chores – carrying water is a daily task. Unicef reports that the unavailability of water within a reasonable distance correlates directly to low rate of school attendance and high rate of drop out by girls. This is due to the disproportionate amount of domestic work, such as water fetching, that rests on girls.


School gives her a good education as well as friendships.




At the School of St Jude, sponsorship includes clothing (uniform), meals and bus transport. Esuvat uses the crowded school buses to get to school.



After school, she takes the bus and then walks home.



At home, her daily chores are waiting.


Esuvat started at the School of St Jude in 2004. In the Std 4 exams at the end of 2005, she placed first in the district of 17,000 students. This very bright girl from a very poor family will have the opportunity to reach her high potential and contribute her talents to the future of her country, thanks to the generosity of sponsors, donors and helpers world-wide.


Esuvat is only one of the many bright children who live in a cycle of continuing poverty. The School of St Jude aims to Fight Poverty Through Education. With our help, their future will be brighter.

Water Sector Support Program

Drought has thrown Tanzania into crisis. While the country has one of the highest levels of natural water storage capacity per capita in Africa, more than 15 million people out of a population of 35 million are without a safe water supply. Moreover, the country relies heavily on rain-fed agriculture as a major contributor to its economy, with limited headwater storage for irrigated agriculture or for the hydro-electricity schemes. The current drought has reduced farm production and caused 18-hour per day electricity blackouts.

25m dam for hydro-electricity on the Kihansi River

The $900m Water Sector Support Program aims to build governance capacity in the Tanzanian water ministry, the National Urban Water Authority (NUWA), and prepare medium and long term plans that will improve the use of Tanzania’s water resources and set up a permanent supply of clean water.

Key activities of the Water Sector Support Program are

• river and lake basin management and development plans for five major rivers and four lakes
• management information system for the NUWA
  
• procedures and guidelines for environmental monitoring
• policy making

This program will give NUWA better skills and tools for effective long-term management of water which will help improve the water supply, hydropower, irrigation, and flood control.
The patchwork of international aid is evident in the list of donors who will contribute to this $900million program – the World Bank; the African Development Bank; the US Millennium Challenge Account; the governments of Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany; and the NGOs WaterAid and UN Habitat.

It seems to me that this hodgepodge of aid organisations much be very inefficient! Imagine all the resources that get chewed up in coordination and accounting. I guess that this is probably inevitable where large scale projects address systemic issues.

I like the directness of a simple project like the School of St Jude because you give directly to the school and they spend the money directly on the kids.


The scarcity of water in Tanzania, is one reason why Mary-Elaine, a volunteer at St Judes, commented that buckets seem to be the very foundation upon which the country is built!

While individuals can make a big difference at the personal level, we really need to see assistance in capacity-building at the national level, if the country is to grow beyond the grinding cycle of perpetuating poverty. In Tanzania, we have reason for hope, because we see assistance given at both levels.