Community Engagement at Mutuka
Imagine needing 100 litres of water a day for your family and going to the only communal tap to find a queue and water dribbling out at 1-litre a minute. It is such a waste of time.
Imagine if your water was never available before 10.00am.
Imagine a school with the same problems where water is needed for drinking, cooking, cleaning and lessons, let alone a market garden.
It is unacceptable and for the Mutuka community it has become an insurmountable hurdle to their collective development.
At their request, LTT have been working with the school leaders, the community members, village and ward leaders as well as the newly appointed water authority (Bawasa) to address the problem. The community’s solution was to lay pipes along a new path under land owned by local farmers for which they got permission. Pretty straightforward - so we raised funds to support them. In addition, it was agreed to build 9 water stands for 9 x 5,000 litre water tanks - 3 in the school and 6 in the community. These tanks will enable more people to access water at the same time and, when combined with greater water pressure, will reduce waiting times significantly and will improve water availability all day
Once the funds were pledged the community mobilised themselves and using hand hoes and spades dug the 2 km long and 3 ft deep trench for the pipes. The water authority supervised the process of laying and connecting the pipes, allowing the trenches to then be covered over.
What is special about this project is the amazing levels of participation by the community in designing and delivering their own solution. The coming together of people to engage in problem solving, the leadership skills and the trust in the leadership. When everyone is going in the same direction so much can be achieved to everyone’s benefit. We are thrilled to be involved with this community and hope we can be of greater service to them in the future.
Community digging the trenches for the pipes
Water engineers connecting the pipes