Water

A quick online search throws up some pretty shocking statistics about water in Tanzania. Nearly half of the country’s population of just over 45 million don’t have access to safe water.  Only 12% of the population have access to toilets, and that drops to 3% for flushing toilets. Approximately one third of deaths of children under 5 in Tanzania are related to poor hygiene.

 
Conversely, Tanzania has extensive water resources with 7% of the country covered by lakes. 60% of the country’s electricity is generated using hydro-electric power stations. Annual rainfall is close to 3000mm in some areas. It is estimated that there are sufficient resources to provide water to its population. However, that water is not evenly spread out across the country. Approximately one third of Tanzania is semi-arid, including Shinyanga where we're based, and moving water long distances is generally prohibitively expensive.

The Tanzanian government has attempted to improve the situation in recent years with varied levels of success. Municipal water supply is available is most major towns – we have mains water supply at our house, and realise what a privilege that is, particularly in this context. 

However, connection charges are very high, as are water charges based on usage, and this puts water out of the reach of the vast majority. Despite the high costs, most utilities are unable to cover their own costs and 88% of funds available to the Tanzanian water sector are provided by external donors. A report published in 2007 stated that only 3 cities provided a continuous water supply but improvements have been made in this respect over the past 7 years.

Overall, access to clean, safe water and sanitation facilities in schools and the health sector in Tanzania has declined over the past 15 years. The poor water and sanitation situation significantly hampers educational performance and effectiveness of medical treatment.

In 2011, just 9% of schools in the country had clean toilets, with only 11% of schools having sufficient latrines to serve all pupils. 45% of schools do not have water on or near the compound and only 14% of schools have handwashing facilities.

The school we are working with does have a mains water supply and count themselves fortunate to do so. However, there are numerous problems associated with water at the school. When supply is cut off, which happens relatively regularly, the students walk half a mile to collect buckets of water for washing and cooking. The high costs of mains water supply has led to is the removal of showers for over 200 boarding pupils who now wash using a bucket of water. A lack of a plentiful, clean water causes, unsanitary toilets, a lack of washing facilities, missed classes and leads to a variety health problems.

We are starting to look at ways to reduce the issues associated with water at the school including the implementation of effective rainwater harvesting would provide a reliable source of water all year round.

We are also planning on implementing bio sand filters over the coming months. An adaptation of a slow sand filter, a bio sand filter is a simple column of sand and gravel that is remarkable effective at treating water from any source, removing high percentages of bacteria, pathogens and viruses. They are relatively cheap, made solely from locally available materials, and are operate under gravity so have no mechanical parts. AICT currently work with 80 local poor communities so the hope is to see as many of these as possible benefit from using the filters. We have seen villages where the primary source of water is best described as being like 'black milk'. These filters have the potential to provide cheap, clean water to families who need it.