Progress Report (Nov 2014)

Achievements so far
During 2012 and 2013 over £10 000 was raised. This enabled the locating of a spring on the mountain side and once capped, the piping was laid all the way down to the village and through the village to the clinic and beyond.

Cath and Lucy visited in December 2013 and were delighted to be able to drink lovely fresh water from a tap considerably beyond the village clinic. A tank has been bought and the site selected.

At present the idea is for the three outlying villages to gain access to the water. This is pure fresh drinking water very much valued by the inhabitants of Chowe. The water from the existing pumps is not clean or so safe. It was a pleasure to see small children drinking and playing with the water from our new taps.

Life in Africa is never straight forward! A set back came with a bad fire in the village that burnt part of the supply lines of piping. Every year the villagers burn the fields where they are going to plant their maize and every year some fires run out of control and sweep up the hill. Often they reach Namizimu and have to be beaten out with great difficulty.

However, there are plans to locate more springs. The original water diviner has visited in November 2014 and these springs will be brought into use so that the supply can be increased and make it possible to spread out to the further villages.

Project Management
The day to day project co-ordination was initially taken on by Dave Clough, Lucy's son. As time has gone on, the village committee along with Mr Bakari are taking more responsibility for the running and maintenance of the project. It is evolving all the time and is becoming more of a village project rather than just a water project. One of the long term plans is to construct a simple house near the clinic so that visiting medical volunteers would have somewhere to live. This would hugely enhance the welfare and health of the 10 000 villagers who rely on the clinic.