A hand up

RIBI Past President Tony de St Dalmas carries a jerry can during his visit to villages in the Dodoma region of Tanzania.

Credit: WaterAid / Ryna Sherazi

Tony de St Dalmas, past President of Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland, chose WaterAid as his preferred charity during his Presidential term in 2002-03. This resulted in  Rotary Clubs donating over £186,250 to WaterAid's projects in Tanzania.

In November Tony and his colleague Ian Rule went to see the projects first-hand, as Tony reports.

"I have had the privilege of seeing the work of WaterAid in the Dodoma region of Tanzania, which is one of the driest regions of one of the poorest countries in Africa. It was not a holiday but a fact-finding mission.

I left the comparative comfort of Dar es Salaam and was driven to Dodoma over 400 miles in about six hours over roads with pot holes which make the deepest in the UK a mere pin prick.

From there I travelled for two hours in a four wheel drive vehicle over roads which made the previous road surfaces seem like a carpet.

I arrived at the village of Msisi (population 2858) for my first meeting with the villagers. The greeting was ecstatic; smiling faces, drums beating, dancers and men in traditional dress with the leader using a football whistle which never left his lips.

But, where was the disease free water? There was none. And there hadn't been any for 20 years. There had been a borehole in 1973 but the engine wore out in 1983 and there were no spare parts. Since then there has been no water project. Until now.

I went to the source where the community currently collect their water. Don't imagine anything like a wishing well. This was a deep crevasse in the ground six metres down a slope. I climbed down and then, bent double, crawled along a tunnel like a miner until a greyish looking fluid appeared. It was scooped up in a gourd, with sediment.

Women helped each other back up the slope. It was 11am, but one woman had been here since 6am. Her jerry can was almost full waiting for the water to seep through. She couldn't use if for another six hours until the sediment settled. It was 14 hours from start to finish. Sometimes they stay all night.

Women in Tanzania often collect water in cans which each hold 20 litres and when full weigh 20kg.

Credit: WaterAid / Alex Macro

The full jerry can which she carried on her head weighed 20 kilos. My baggage allowance on the flight from the UK was 30 kilos so you can appreciate the weight.

But it wasn't just the time taken to collect the water on a daily basis. The women were prevented from doing other productive things and they had children with them, which means no schooling, and the water was so polluted it meant the risk of diarrhoea and cholera.

However there is now hope in Msisi. WaterAid and their partner WAMMA hope to get the old borehole working within six months.

The village has a water committee and a water fund in the bank, consisting of contributions from the community. Soon there will be disease free water here.

The next village, Mtanana, had a project almost finished. I went to the borehole and pump house. The mechanic had great pride in the Lister engine which was gleaming. It pumped clean water from the borehole into two tanks, one for the villagers, and the other for the animals.

When completed the water will be pumped from the borehole to a high level water storage tank, which will then feed pipes to water outlets in the village (the trench for the pipes has already been dug by the villagers).

Women will wait no longer than ten minutes and pay approximately 12p per jerry can. The money is used to buy fuel, pay the water employee and for any repairs.

I then saw a big completed project in a small town with 28 street outlets for domestic use. Each point was manned by a person employed by the water committee.

A water meter showed how much water was consumed and the person in charge handed in the payments to the water committee each day and it is locked at night. But what about those elderly or infirm people who couldn't afford to pay? At the outlet I visited there were the names of nine people identified by the villagers who had free water.

The WAMMA engineers give instruction on the machines and there is training of men and women who work as community health promoters, sanitation craftsmen, water and health committees and children with one-to-one schemes for hygiene.

I have seen the smiles of the villagers, the gratitude of the villagers where there is water and I have seen, where there is none, the hope of the villagers that we will not let them down. We must not, we can not! I have never been more convinced of the need for disease free water than I am now … I have seen it. I have felt it".

WaterAid in Tanzania

Examples of our work in Tanzania