By Wanangwa Tembo

Kasungu, October 31, Mana: At Kawiya Community Day Secondary School in the area of Traditional Authority Mnyanja in Kasungu District, 16-year-old Form 2 student, Felistas Lungu used to be outside her hostels as early as 4am.

With a bucket in her hand, the destination would be a stream located at about a kilometre distance to fetch water for a bath in readiness for classes.

With a lowered water table, the stream is perennially dry and communities managed to dig an open well, which served both students and tobacco farmers who use it to water their nursery beds.

“You really had to work early enough to find the water. Any delays meant you would find the well dirty or with no water as the farmers also depend on the same for their tobacco nurseries,” Lungu says.

In this equation of waking up this early, Lungu and her friends did not have adequate sleep and the results could be seen in class where the students felt weary and sleepy – dozing off as lessons were in progress.

The teachers too were not spared in this predicament. Their errands to fetch water had negative trickledown effects on the delivery of lessons.

“You wake up and the first thing is to go somewhere far to fetch water. And you come back tired going to class to teach.

“Our work demands that we prepare thoroughly to make teaching and learning effective. So the absence of water was a big disturbance to both learners and teachers,” says Head Teacher for the school, Chikondi Kaundama.

The scramble for water from unprotected open wells amongst students, teachers and communities was not just a fight for survival, but also an open invitation for waterborne diseases like cholera.

“The water was itself not safe to use but also that its scarcity compromised every element in the hygiene equation. It’s not surprising that waterborne diseases were common,” Kaundama says.

Touched by the plight of the learners and the community at large, The Sonder Project, a humanitarian non-governmental organization (NGO) lobbied for support to reverse the sufferings.

With a K39 million investment, the organization has planted a solar reticulated water system at the school, which is also to benefit hundreds other households surrounding the school.

Speaking during the water system handover ceremony, Sonder Project Country Director Beria Mwaulambo said Kawiya CDSS was one example of how rural schools grapple with water challenges.

“Access to clean water is one of the biggest challenges affecting schools and communities in the rural areas. We came here at Kawiya School and the surrounding community to help eradicate the so many ills that come due to lack of access to clean water.

“For instance, this school was relying on an unprotected open shallow well and both learners and teachers used to travel long distances to collect water and the likelihood of suffering from water-borne illness, and missing classes was high,” Mwaulambo said.

The system at Kawiya is now supplying water to the students’ hostels where modern bathrooms fitted with showers have been constructed as part of the project package.

“So we have two taps and four showers at the girls’ hostel, one tap and three showers at the boys’ hostel, while some taps have been put at the main school campus, teachers’ houses and the surrounding communities.

“Our mission is to empower communities through high-impact, sustainable development. We envision a world where each individual and community has the resources and opportunities needed to improve their own lives, and to lift themselves and future generations from poverty,” she said.

Through the ‘Water is Our Right’ component, the Sonder Project is drilling boreholes, installing water systems and distributing water filters to communities like Kawiya in a bid to increase access to clean water.

“We are proud to say that the school and the surrounding communities are now drinking water that is free from diseases clean water and education are interrelated. At Kawiya School, for example, enrollment numbers were less than 200 when the project was first conceived, even though the school has a capacity for 400 students.

“Students were dropping out and not showing up because the conditions were not conducive for learning.  Too much time was spent fetching water and causing students to miss school. Teachers faced similar challenges and turnover rates were high,” Mwaulambo said.

Now with a cool morning shower taken right in their hostels, learners like Lungu, and the teachers led by Kaundama, promise to repay back with hard work, saying the feeling that they are in a forgotten rural school is over.

On his part, Paul Mgunda who represented the Education Division Manager for Central East Education Division said education authorities expect the project to attract more teachers to the school and improve the school outcomes especially in national examinations.

“Now the students and the teachers can focus on what is most important, getting an education and improving performance,” Mgunda said.

Kasungu District Council Water Officer, Charles Mwenda, expressed gratitude to Sonder Project saying the water facility will help many households in the area to access clean water and prevent diseases.

“We mostly rely on ground which also expensive to extract. That is why we applaud partners like Sonder Project for complementing government’s efforts to ensure that there is clean water for everyone.

“My appeal is that we should all own the facility by taking care of it so that it is sustained for the benefit of others in the future. Parents must ensure the project is well cared for,” Mwenda said.

Since 2020, Sonder Project has drilled 23 boreholes and installed two solar-powered water supply systems to two secondary schools in Kasungu District impacting over 10,500 people, while at the same time distributing about 168 water filters to dispersed communities and those without boreholes.

A 2022 Voluntary National Review on the progress of implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Malawi shows that the country is on track to meet its target of universal access to water and sanitation for all by 2030.

Currently, at least 67 per cent of the population has access to improved sources of safe water but experts say distribution of water facilities among districts and between urban and rural areas remains uneven.

These indicators are likely to improve further if efforts like this at Kawiya, are replicated in many rural schools and communities.