Kilimanjaro TZ – Mkyashi water collection tanks no longer needed? – 30 Sep 2021

These water tanks served the community from mid 2016 to 2020, after Lishe Bora in collaboration with BetterLives made it possible for more than 21 families of Mkyashi village to have safe drinking water running out of their stand pipes right at their homes. Before then, they had lived for years carrying buckets of water on their head. Some were carrying water from a natural underground spring located at the bottom of a steep slippery hill which takes someone more than 40 minutes to collect water on a single round trip. The change to piped water was achieved through construction of an infrastructure of water collection tank at the spring source, pump connected to a pipe running up the hill to a tank atop of a tank stand. Once the water was pumped into the hill top tank, it flowed by natural gravity from the elevated tank through a pipe network to the home standpipes.

Implementation of this project was assisted by students from Parmiter’s School in the UK. It has not only benefited the 21 families with easy access to clean drinking water, but has also contributed by raising the whole community and regional government’s awareness of the need for water in the whole area of Kilema Ward.

Consequently, a priority has been given to further improving a water supply project (KIRUA –KAHE WATER PROJECT). Under government sponsorship, it will be expanded and improved to reliably serve many more families.

Having the government and local community water pipe systems in the same area has often been a challenge of infrastructure interference. For example, when the improved Kirua – Kahe water projects sometimes lay new pipes that cross where the Mkyashi pipes lie.

Deo of Tupendane, who is assisting Lishe Bora, is proposing meeting with families to understand if they want to use the Kirua-Kahe system now that the government is working to improve its running and maintenance. If they want to, then Lishe Bora should consider passing the community water infrastructure to Kirua-Kahe for managing so that they can supply water to the families on the system who do not have a piped water supply at the moment.