By Alfred Chauwa

Hope Water Limited says the extension of water projects into Dowa Turn-off has brought significant improvement in reduction of early marriages as well as school drop-outs.

Three years down the line, Director at the Hope Water Malawi Limited Innocent Semu says people at Dowa turn-off are now able to save money as they are spending less in search for the water that has been brought closer to them.

“Looking at the development in this community, more people are migrating to Dowa turn-off just because water are now close to them and they have built nice houses bigger ones like the one’s in area 43, so life now is made easier in Dowa turn-off, so we are very happy for the progress of the project and the impact into people’s lives,” Semu highlighted.

He further said they are plans to extend the storage facility to meet people’s demands.

Solomoni Chitsa of Traditional Authority Mkukula conquered with Semu saying that the coming in of the water project has prompted business tycoons to migrate to the area that has also helped in boosting the infrastructure development in the area as these business magnets are building modern houses.

On the other hand residents in the area are able to earn money through selling of cleaning portable water that came in through the project and there has been a reduction of water borne diseases in the area as highlighted by Mrs. Makombe a resident at Dowa turn-off.

Henry Kumwenda who is the building inspector working with Hope Water Malawi Limited said the project is so far pumping water from Nthambwe river with 50, 000 litres reservoirs among which 10,000 liters are situated at Chavala agriculture area and the other 40,000 litres reservoirs are situated at Nthambwe residence to be supplied to the community.

“Initially to be honest they are not enough, because this Nthambwe Dowa turn-off area, there are so many developments that have just come in because this water source, so for us to catch up with the demand we can require at least 100,000 littles of water source,” Kumwenda said.

The project is reaching out to 6,000 people around Dowa turn-off.

On issues of early marriages, it has also been revealed that these cases have drastically reduced while at the same time increasing girls enrollment at Chavala Primary School and other surrounding schools.

As a matter of background, Rhema Institute for Development (RHID) with support from Hope for a Child embarked on the implementation of Dowa Turn-off piped water supply project to help increase access to potable water in Dowa District.

The project aims at supporting
communities in provision of safe drinking water around Dowa Turn-off by way of solar powered water reticulation supply system which will have communal water points (CWPs) in different locations as dispersing points.

For easy monitoring of the production and consumption both the supply and the distribution lines of this piped water system will be metered.

Currently all the dispensing points have prepaid meters to maximize revenue collection efficiency for cost recovery, sustainable operation and maintenance and to allow for further expansion of the scheme as well all construction of other new schemes in equally needy localities.