Thursday, May 15, 2008

Almost $1200.00 Raised!!!

The fund raising campaign is going great, with $1,191 dollars raised so far, that means we're almost half way to our goal, and we've raised that much in just two short weeks!. To all that have donated, thank you so much! For those of you that haven't there is still time, and pass a link to this blog onto your friends.



I got an email from Nan recently, and she said that things were going well, and that Matelo is very excited with the progress on the project!



Please pass this link to this blog on and keep the project going strong!

How the Wells are Built

So, before I get into the nitty gritty of how these wells are built, I should first bring you up to speed with how water is currently collected in the Matelo area.

Currently, women and men collect water at a number of sources in the area. Shallow Dip Wells, a few streams, and a borehole well at Matelo Basic School. This water is carried in Jerry Cans, as seen in this picture, or on the back of bicycles, for the families that can afford them. A full jerry can like the ones being carried in this photo weigh around 35 pounds each when full. Zambian Women (or "Bana Maio" in the local Bemba language, are tough!

Most residents that are not living close to Matelo Basic get their water from shallow dip wells. These are essentailly holes in the ground where the water table comes close to the surface.


These are often found near ant hills, which are plentiful in the area. As the ants displace clay and sand from the soil below, water percolates upward. In the right areas, water can be found not far beneath the soil around anthills, especially if they are near the floodplain of a stream.

To the right, these residents of Matelo are cleaning out a dip well that is used by many residents. Before the borehole was built at the school, this is where I got my water.



As the dry season wears on, many of these dip wells go dry, and those that do hold water are over used, making the water muddy. Also with many people gathering water from the same unprotected source, along with roaming animals, these water sources often become contaminated.

This dip well was located near my neighbor Lauren's site. These pictures were taken at the end of the dry season, when water was at its scarcist.


Some residents were still gathering water from these sources.


Most would boil this water, and then allow it to cool in calabashes (gourd containers) where the particulates would settle out. When processed in this manner, the water was much safer to drink, however, when not handled properly, it made it easy to get sick.



When the first rains come to Zambia in early November, these water sources quickly become contaminated, as there is nothing to prevent things from washing into these holes.


Most people try to find the cleanest sources of water in their areas, but many of these are still unprotected, open holes.

In November and December, people often fall ill with diharrea and other intestinal ailments. This happens at an especially critical time as well, as soon after the first rains, the soil must be tilled and seeds planted, so they can take advantange of the full length of the rainy season. This is also when family's food supplies are at their lowest. November and December are difficult times for many in the Matelo area, however as the rainy season progresses, things get better, and yes, the water gets cleaner.




In 2006, a borehole well was installed at Matelo Basic School. This was installed by the Zambian government, as an initiative to install borehole wells at all government schools in the country.


These are the type of wells often funded and installed by many international non profit groups.

This borehole pumped fresh clean water from deep in the ground. During the rainy season, villagers traveled significant distances to pump water from this well.


Unfortunately these wells are very expensive to create ($3,000-$15,000 each depending on location). Also they are installed with machinery not found in the village, and feature supplies not found in the village.


When a simple rubber bushing wears out, these wells are often left unusuable for months or even years, as villagers do not have the tools, or knowledge needed to fix these wells. They must wait until a government agency or NGO returns to fix it. During that time period, villagers often go back to drawing water from unprotected sources.


Also, schools are very distant from one another. In the Matelo area, schools are 5-8 miles apart. People that live within a quarter mile of the school tend to utilize the borehole well, those that are futher away, resort to dip wells and streams


When my Peace Corps neighbor Lauren and I arrived in the Matelo and Paul Mambilima areas, outside of Mansa Zambia, we came with skills focused on teaching about sustainable agricutluture and forestry, and Lauren, HIV AIDS. We began our service concentrating on these issues, but very quickly, the community made it known that securing clean drinking water was the immediate need in the area.


So our focuses shifted a bit during our service. I continued to teach about sustainable agriculture and forestry, and Lauren HIV/AIDS, but we also joined forces to tackle the issue of establishing a path to clean drinking water in the area.


The first step in this process was revolved around educating the area about how they themselves could take charge of this process. The community, Lauren and I worked hard to secure grant funding for a week-long Water and Sanitation Health Education Workshop (WASHE).



When translated from Bemba, this reads "Welcome everyne to the WASHE T.O.T."


T.O.T. Stands for "Training of Trainers"


This is what Peace Corps is all about. Teaching other people how to help themselves. This creates a local knowledge base. These people that we trained were community leaders in the area, and their responsibility was to take the knowledge they gained from the workshop, and teach others in the community.


During this workshop, we covered a number of topics from proper handwashing techniques, to the use of Clorin (an inexpensive clorine that can be added to water collected from dip wells, that kills all the bacteria in the water).






We also did some prepwork in some surrounding villages to have two hand-dug wills dug.

Digging the Well


These wells are dug in clay soils, that are firmly settled. This allows diggers to dig very deeply, safely.
The wells are usually about three and half feet wide, and dug deep enough to reach the water table. Some of these wells go down 30 feet. Beyond that, things can rapidly get unstable, so they usually go no deeper.
This may look bizzare, but this was the way wells were dug all over the world up until the advent of modern drilling in the 1900s.


The digger usually climbs down a rope, or foot holds are carved into the sides of the well, and they climb down that way. The soil is hauled up to the top by the bucketload.
These well holes are dug at the end of the rainy season (October), when the soil is the driest and the water table the lowest. That way the hole is as deep as possible. Ususally they are dug until the digger is calf deep in water. At that point, water will begin to percolate into the well from the surround soil, often slowly filling the bottom of the well with 3-5 feet of clean groundwater.
Here's two videos that will give you a better idea of the digging process.


Building the Top of the Well
The well digging was completed a few weeks before the start of the WASHE workshop. For this workshop we were assisted by the hard work of Mr Patrick Kampangwe. He is seen below leading the intro to the well cap building process.


Talking about the well cap construction process...
The well cap is what makes this well a protected well this means that the cap helps prevent contaminants from entering the well and spoiling the water. It also allows the well to be "locked" when the water if the water were to become unsafe to drink. The cap also prevents people and animals from falling into the well.




Bricks molded and burned by the community. These bricks form the substructure of the well cap.









Stones collected from the area then fill the gaps between the bricks.








Cement is used to join the bricks and stones together.

As all Zambian houses are built from molded bricks that they make themselves, many Zambians are expert bricklayers.








Bana Chola, a local school teacher jumps in on the mortaring










Bana Jenipher Chiwele.









The sides of the well cap cure quickly, and soil is mounded around the cap so that the well skirt and runway can be built.








Again, rocks are interspersed amongst bricks for the skirt. The skirt prevents water from settling into the well hole, and keep this soil stable. The skirt is curved up at the edges so that the water funnels down the runway to the drain that is located about 15 feet from the well hole.





The Skirt is covered with a thin layer of cement to make it water tight, and the runway is built with bricks and small stones. That too is then covered with a thin layer of cement.

Here's a quick video of everybody working on the top of the well... as you can see, it's a community
project!


The completed base of the well looks alot like a guitar!







Building the Well Cap
The well hole cover is constructed using bricks , 8 feet of rebar steel, and cement.

First, the top of the well is measured, and a replica of that size is outlined on the clay ground.
Bricks are then layed around the circumerence. These bricks will create a "form" used to make the cement cap of the well.





The metal well cap lid, which is built by metal workers in the Mansa market is placed in the center, and this allows the rebar to be layed across and cut to the appropriate sizes.




When the bricks are arranged correctly along with the metal lid, and the rebar is cut to length.
Sand is then laid across the bottom of the circle.
This sand will provide a clean surface to eventually lift the new cap off the ground. The cement will not bind to the ground, only to the first half inch of sand.




Rebar laid in place, and sand adjusted.








Cement is then added atop the rebar and sand..









Then it is smoothed, leaving about a quarter inch of brick above on the sides. This makes it easier to chip the bricks away from the cap once the cap has cured.





The cap is left to cure for a week.

Then the cap is ready to be moved. After chipping away the bricks, eight to ten people gather around and lift the cap off the sand, and place it on top of the well.


After a long day of work, we had alot of be proud of. The cap was placed on the well about a week later, and after a thoughrough cleaning with some clorin, the the well was ready to be used about a week later.
The labor and knowledge base needed to create these wells now exists in Matelo, along with almost all the supplies needed to build them.
Only cement, the metal cap, rebar, a rope and a bucket must be bought in town.
This translates into wells that cost 1/6th to 1/20th the cost of drilled well. Plus the knowledge to build and maintain these wells is kept in the village. Also repairs are inexpensive, and can be performed by the people in the village.
This translates into sustainable wells... wells that can be used, maintained and recreated as needed, forever.

Here's two shots of Lauren and one of her Neigbors using the well in the rainy season. Good clean water! Yeeeeeha! Mwabombeni Mukwai! (Good work!)














Since the completion of this workshop in 2006, the workshop attendees have gone on to teach these improved water and santiation techniques to hundereds of people in the surrounding area. With this education, a groundswell of interest and participation built over the course of the year, and more and more people recieved this information and education.
As a result, fewer people are getting sick in the area, and the community has organized to build a number of new wells in the area.
With your support, it can happen!

Monday, May 12, 2008

43% of the Way There!

We have $1398.00 to go! We are already 43% of the way to the goal. We have raised $986.00 so far!!! Awesome! Thanks so much to all of you that have donated! Please pass the link to this blog on to your friends and family!

Friday, May 9, 2008

Off to a great start!

Hey Everybody,

Just wanted to let you know that the fundraising has gotten off to a terrific start. We've raised almost 40% of our goal, with $926.00 donated so far, and only $1458.00 left to go. Thanks soooooo much! People have been forwarding on the email, and I've heard from alot of people. A friend of mine is even going to be starting a fundraiser / education project on it at her grade school. Awesome! Thanks alot everybody, and pass on the info. Share the link to this blog with others!
All the best,
Gregg

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

The Background Letter

Hello Friends and Family,

I am writing to let you know some super positive news that's happening in Zambia, and is something that you can be a part of. The people living in the Matelo area of Zambia (the villages I was volunteering in), have rallied together, and are in the process of constructing 5 hand-dug, protected wells in the area! These will provide clean water to approximately 800 people. I am asking you, personally, to contribute $10.00 to this effort. I am asking this because when the cost is divided amongst the 200 people I hope will donate, this $10.00 amount will be enough to provide clean water to an entire family in this area.

Currently in this area, water is drawn from the one bore hole well at Matelo school, or from a number of shallow, unprotected holes in the area. A majority of people are collecting water in this fashion as the borehole is too far from their house. When rainy season begins in late October, these unprotected wells become contaminated, and many people in the area become sick with intestinal illnesses. This also happens at a time when food is most scarce, and farming work is most critical... the land must be tilled by hand and seeds must be planted in the first few weeks of rainy season.

This effort to build these eleven wells is coming about because of three factors. 1) The Matelo area is a motivated community that is looking to improve life for the people living there, and sees improvement in drinking water as their number one need, and has started this initiative. 2) My Peace Corps neighbor Lauren Schroeder and I worked real hard in the second year of our service to educate the area on how to improve their basic water and sanitation so that fewer people would become ill from easily preventable diseases, and we held workshops on how to construct these wells. 3) The current Peace Corps volunteer working in Matelo, Nan Davis, has worked very hard to coordinate with the local communities to get these projects started while simultaneously securing funding for the few materials that are needed that the village cannot produce or afford. GO NAN!!!



I think it would be an awesome show of solidarity if we all donated $10.00 to show the collective power of our support for these people. Of course, if you would like to donate more, it would be graciously accepted, and well used (pun intended). In the event of raising more than the total of $2,384.00 needed to complete these 11 wells, the money would then go into the general funding pool for other Peace Corps partnership grants. Your donation is 100% tax deductible.

You can donate safely and securely through the Peace Corps website here: (It takes two minutes, that's it... I did it!)
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=611-035

If you have problems with the link, just go to the Partnership page (link below, click donate to volunteer projects, search by country of service: Zambia, then scroll down towards the bottom and you'll find "Well Project" A. Davis, and click on the link there. Enter the amount you'd like to donate in the box, and click donate. A page will then appear asking for your credit card info, then finally a confirmation page will appear that you can print out for your tax records.

To find out more about Peace Corps Partnerships, click here.


Peace Corps Volunteers work in developing nations providing people with the skills and resources needed to allow these people to help themselves. This project is a prime example of this philosophy.

Rather than funding a borehole well dug by a drilling machine mounted on a truck (the method used unfortunately by many Aid groups, cost per well $6,000-$30,000 each, featuring parts unaffordable and unfixable by most villagers), this project is being completed by the community for the community, with community re sources, and some monetary assistance from you. Your money will be used to provide the cement, steel bars and a metal cap to protect the wells from contamination. The people of Matelo have volunteered to dig these wells by hand, mold and burn the bricks needed for the project, wheelbarrow all the sand for the concrete to the site, collect stones for the concrete, and carry in the water to make the concrete, and constuct the cap of the well. Villagers will construct these wells with supervision by the Peace Corps volunteer. Hence the knowledge and skills needed to construct these wells will be transferred to all villagers, creating the potential to help thousands of other people.

Most importantly these wells are easy to use and maintain. They are essentially a hole three and half feet wide deep enough to reach the water table. A rope with a bucket on the end is lowered into the hole and pulled back up once it is filled with water. If the rope breaks, it is easy, uncomplicated and inexpensive to fix. A cement cap with a lockable metal lid in the center keeps the well clean, and allows it to be secured if it were to become contaminated. Contaminated wells are treated through a simple and inexpensive clorification process, and can be re-opened when the water is tested as being safe (water treatment and analysis is performed by the Zambian Water Authority).


If you would like any more information about the project, please feel free to get in contact with myself, or you could can contact Nan Davis, the Peace Corps Volunteer spearheading this effort. She is in Mansa where she can receive email about every two weeks.

I will not have access to the list of donors to personally thank you for your assistance. So I'll say it here.

Thank you for providing a family in Matelo with clean drink ing water.
Natotella Sana! (Thank you very much).

All the best to you,
-Gregg

PS, if you are interested, email me and I'll keep you updated on the progress of the project! Even if you don't you might get an email or two... think about it... one meal at McDonalds = water for life !!!

Gregg Hayward
188 Dover Point Road
Dover, NH 03820
603-988-2924
gregghayward@gmail.com

Nan Davis
Peace Corps Volunteer
PO Box 710150
Mansa, Zambia
Africa
via air mail

nananimal@gmail.com