By Winfrida Kamwana

Mchinji, April 24, Mana: Residents of about four Villages under Senior Group Tikoliwe in Traditional Authority (TA) Mlonyeni are now all smiles after a well-wisher has drilled a borehole them

The Dubai based well-wisher, Annie Makolera has drilled a borehole for them after a long time of struggling to have access to potable water.

Speaking during the handover ceremony, Chief Tikoliwe expressed his gratitude over the development stating that now his people would have access to potable water.

“Access to potable water has long been a challenge in this community which has affected a lot of areas both developmental and health. We really appreciate the donors for doing something so remarkable for us, their help will not be taken lightly,” he said.

Social Media Influencer, Gerald Kampanikiza who represented the well-wisher said the decision to provide a borehole to Tikoliwe came after noting that people in the area were walking a long distance to fetch water.

“People walked a long distance to fetch water which endangered their lives. Not only that, the water these people were consuming was not safe exposing them to water-borne diseases,” he explained.

Kampanikiza stated that three more areas in the country would benefit from the same project t is in all the remaining three regions.

“The well-wisher hopes to help more areas and has since asked the ones benefiting from these works to take care of the properties so that they last longer,” he added.

One community member, Mercy Mwale appreciated the well-wisher saying the intervention would assist in solving challenges such as divorces that centered around misunderstandings that came with fetching water from a long distance.

“Despite walking a long distance to fetch water, fights would break at the water source because the water was not enough for everyone and no one wanted to go back home without water,” she stated.

Mwale appealed to various key stakeholders to take care of the borehole.

A whistleblower, Ephraim Zulu provided the video to Kampanikiza and his team expressed his excitement over the intervention appreciating the well-wisher for choosing his village as one of the beneficiaries.

“This village has been sidelined mostly in developmental projects and seeing that one of the challenges has been handled, I am very grateful,” he noted.

Zulu explained that access to potable water has not been the only challenge, there was issues to do with early marriages among the youth, the increase in sexual transmitted diseases and problems in accessing health support since Mchinji District Hospital is far from their area.

The idea to drill a borehole came about when Kampanikiza and his team posted on their Facebook page stating that a well-wisher was ready to provide potable water to any community which prompted Zulu to provide the video to the team.

The project costed about K 8.2 million.