Friday, February 10, 2012

REHABILITATION OF MANGWE BOREHOLES BEGINS

By Information Department

The mood is euphoric, the excitement is soaring, the atmosphere is heavily saturated with hope and happiness and the script resembles Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom. From the advocacy training in 2007 to the policy dialogue, numerous public meetings, the research on the state of boreholes and water points, a number of advocacy meetings with key stakeholders, linking to the Rural Partners Indaba, the training of pump minders and the resuscitation of water point committees; it has been indeed a long, tedious, frustrating but fruitful walk for water freedom in Mangwe ward 1 and 13 communities.

Courtesy of funding support from the Australian Embassy, Habakkuk Trust has contracted a service provider to rehabilitate 23 boreholes in Mangwe ward 1 and 13 and an estimated population of 1 200 villagers shall benefit from the exercise. This will bring to logical conclusion the advocacy issue that the community advocacy teams in the area have been pursuing for the past 5 years. The Habakkuk Trust staff that accompanied the service provider to the community reports that the Advocacy teams on Wednesday 08 February 2012) organized community meetings where they briefed the community of the success and also introduced the service provider. The advocacy teams also sought community support in the project.

Habakkuk Trust have been advocating for access to clean water in Mangwe, Bulawayo and other parts of the Matabeleland Region. Four years ago (in 2008) at the Water Indaba that was organized by Habakkuk Trust, a water expert presented a paper suggesting that linking there is need for increased water pumping Inyankuni to Ncema dam to augment the Bulawayo’s water supply, a proposition that the local authority has since adopted and implemented through the Inyankuni – Ncema water works duplication pipeline.