Completion of Providing Clean Water for School Children in Malawi

As seen in our previous news article announcing the start of this project back in May, Think Malawi funded a borehole project for Kanyenje Primary School. The project was carried out by our Malawi-based charity partners on the project, Tingathe Development Forum (TIDEF).

At Kanyenje Primary School, nearly 700 students (330 boys and 365 girls) aged between the ages of 6 to 14, had to walk over 2km to a local well. This was often overcrowded due to usage by local villages and was frequently in an unsafe condition.

The only other source for the children of the school was a local river. This river provided dirty unclean water which has previously caused 30 cholera-related deaths in the Kanyenje Community between 2022-2023 with many of these being children from the school.

As mentioned in our earlier article, the planned local 70-meter-deep borehole-type well was identified as a way to provide a reliable and clean water source local to the school. A positive hydro-geological survey confirmed the presence of a strong underground water source.

To access this water source heavy machinery was brought in to drill into the ground, clear debris and set-up the well. The success of this process is seen by the below video:

Following this initial establishment of the borehole, the successful construction of the well was finished at the start of June. It established a basin for the water with a hand pump to bring the water up from the ground water source.

The Head Teacher of Kanyenje Primary School expressed gratitude for the project's success saying:

"We need to Thank Think Malawi for giving us this borehole, we had so many challenges because we had a lack of water. This borehole will help our children and our girls with different problems"

She further noted that previously that, the long time to fetch water caused high absenteeism and student dropouts. The borehole now provides an safe, clean and quick water source:

"with this borehole students will be able to spend more time participating in classes"

To allow for this borehole well to support the school in the long-term a series of local initiatives have been set up:

• A Well Management Committee (5 women and 5 men) will oversee the water system’s usage and maintenance.

• A Water Maintenance Fund, supported by community contributions every four months, will ensure ongoing upkeep.

• Training programs will equip 30 people—including all committee members—with the skills needed to repair, clean, and monitor the borehole and pump.

While this may seem to be the end of the project we will stay in communication with TDE and Kanyenje Primary School to understand the long-term benefits of the borehole and continue reporting on this.

You can click on the news section of our website to read other similar projects throughout this year, however, there are other ways to also stay updated through our social media such as Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and X or join our monthly newsletter.

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