The Chowe Village Water Project
The Chowe Village Water project involves fundraising to build a fresh water system for the village clinic and for the outlying villages round Chowe a remote village in Eastern Malawi.

This involved the locating and digging of a new spring on the slopes above the village and laying the piping down to a water tank which would gravity feed the village clinic providing it with fresh running water for the first time.

This clinic was built over 30 years ago by the community as a self-build project. Although it is operational 24 hours a day it still had no electricity or running water.

The History of the Water Project
Lucy Clough and her daughter Cath Kerr visited Malawi in December 2011. Lucy's son Dave lives 500 ft above Chowe villlage where, with his partner Tara, they have established a small eco tourism centre at Namizimu. During their stay Cath and Lucy spent a day with three elderly ladies from the village. They were shown how they make their beautiful cooking pots out of the locally dug clay. At the end of this enjoyable day they were invited to visit the ladies in Chowe itself. The village is quite spread out as most of the thatched huts have a little area for maize growing. It is very clean and tidy. Because both Cath and Tara are nurses, the day included a visit to the clinic. They found there was no electricity or running water. There are some water pumps in the village but any fresh water had to be carried from these pumps.

On their return from Malawi, Cath and Lucy decided to start raising funds for the clinic. Babies were born daily in the village by candlelight and with no running water to hand. Mr Bakari, the administrative head of the village said that they were on a high priority list for electricity but that there was no hope of running water being connected for the forseeable future.

The idea of the Chowe village water Project was born! Fundraising started in earnest in April 2012 back in Scotland. Paul, Lucy's second son designed the website to inform people of progress and to facilitate donations.

See our Progress Report Page