Safe and Clean Drinking Water for Kauzhumba Primary School

Involved alumni:

The challenge that the project addresses

Kauzhumba Primary School in rural Zimbabwe suffers from acute shortage of safe and clean drinking water. Three options to address this:

a) Drawing water from a weir dam, 3km from the school requiring pipes and a water pump to pump water from the dam to a storage tank at the school.

b) drawing water from some mega tanks at Marembera’s main source of water, almost 8 km from the school, which needs pipes and trenches, gate valve & a mega tank installed at school.

c) Drilling a borehole at the school – we consider this the best option.

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What is your project doing to respond to this challenge?

The water project is considered as part of the school development project. The school development project started in 2016. As for the water project, we have made appeals via social media. We also approached Toni Waite organization, a reputable local NGO in Kariba, to support us with funding applications. Since 2019, we have been in contact with one of the co-founders of 123-action, an organization bringing water to Zimbabwe and Togo. The organization promised to assess the situation at the school when they find the right time to visit Zimbabwe.

Describe the project's impact

a. Improve access to safe and clean drinking water for staff and pupils

b. Curbing possible disease outbreak (health benefit)

c. Time saved to focus on core business/teaching. The realization of this project will cut down travel lengths for students and teachers. In addition, if a borehole is drilled at Kauzhumba school, then Kauzhumba school children will not spend hours every day collecting water for their families and will not miss school.

d. Potentially improving student pass rates as clean drinking water which is readily available can lead to staff retention with obvious benefits for pupils and for school development. A teacher available for the long haul is likely to contribute to the school’s development and to local community development.

e. If there is water, the school can start cropping as an income generating project or start a feeding scheme for students.