Meeting Communities and planning 400 new wells

17th February 2017:

We had two teams on the road today.

The picture shows Florence with a group of parents and girls looking at schools attendance and results. This schools is the CDSS (Community Day Secondary School) Enzeni, where we support 20 girls. It is about 30 km from Mzuzu and a difficult place to get.
It is a very rural school built in the middle of a large catchment.

The second trip for Alfred and Benjamin was to the Kasungu District, over 250 km from the factory. The mission to meet communities without pumps or clean water.

The best way to describe the enormity of our task is to add Alfred's report:

We had three areas that we conduct  meetings:
We were two people, Alfred and Benjamin.
-        Alfred as a leader of pumps explained to people about  Wells for Zoe pumps and teaching them how to dig and build our wells


There were three different areas where meetings were held and the areas are as follows:


1.     Chisemphere
2.     Nkhamenya
3.     Kamudidi


v  IIn each village we had a minimum of 10 chiefs attending the meeting, we had some health personnel for some piece of advise and to encourage people to dig more wells for them to have safe and clean water.
v  lWe had some people from different Churches and they were requesting Wells for Zoe to give them pumps in different churches


First meeting held at Chisemphere.
Chiefs attended:


1.     Jala
2.     Yosefe
3.     Sopani
4.     Kamphandira
5.     Mphundukila
6.     Katosa
7.     Katamiza
8.     Mwalimo
9.     Chipeta
10.  Mphande, and some church officials and some individuals.
The main problem in these areas is water, and they requested for 100 wells to be dug, and they are also interested with the irrigation pump. They have promised that they will buy during dry season .


Second Meeting at Nkhamenya
Chives attended
1.     Senior Group headman Mwalino
2.     Senior Chief Kaluluma
3.     Thipa
4.     Njawa
5.     Ulaya
6.     Moyo
7.     Hara
8.     Manyika
9.     Church Pastor
10.  Church Elders
-        This is at Nkhamenya where there is no water around the mentioned chiefs, Plan International Malawi has tried to drill some  bole holes but due to large number of the people most of them struggle to find water for their everyday life, they explained that they are living a tough life. Women and girls get up 3 am to fetch for water.
-        Lastly they are very thankful for Wells for Zoe to bring good news that they didn’t dream about it and they promise to dig 150 wells in their areas.


Third Meeting Kamudidi
Chiefs attended


1.     GVH Chirwa
2.     GVH Nkunika
3.     GVH Mwandira
4.     GVH Kamphalinga
5.     GVH Nkhata
6.     VH Chioko
7.     VH Chinjoka
8.     VH Mkandira
9.     VH Zimema
10.  VH Mtenganga
11.  VH Sandres
12.  VH Kachipwa
In this area they have a lot of broken Marion Mission pumps some with no water. They agreed to dig deeper wells, so that we can put on our pumps to replace  all those that have not worked for years. This area promised to dig 200 wells.


General Comments
In all the areas visited people were very happy to see us and very much interested with our pumps, they promise to start digging in July because water table is high in the areas
Wells that they have been dug already are the ones that will start installing first including the Marion Mission Wells.
One man in the meeting offered himself to volunteer his help in that he knows how to dig and build from inside up to top.
All people are very happy and very thankful because it is far from Mzuzu and  they don’t take it for granted but to thank Wells for Zoe for their interest and the excellent job they are doing.


Alfred