By Steve Chirombo

Dedza, March 21, Mana: As Malawi joins the rest of the world in commemorating World Water Day on Friday, one of the country’s humanitarian organizations, Welthungerhilfe (WHH), has disclosed plans to provide safe and potable solar powered water supply to 11 villages under Nsungo area in Senior Chief Kachindamoto in Dedza District.

The organization’s Project Coordinator, Khumbo Munthali, disclosed this on Wednesday during a media tour to the area where he also said the intervention intends to benefit 400 households, approximately over 2,000 people.

He said: “As WHH through this initiative, we join the rest of the world in commemorating World Water Day which falls on March 22. This is one way to ensure communities are accessing safe and potable water close to their homes,” said Munthali.

He added that the development was also a response to the community members who approached his organization after noticing that most boreholes in the area were producing saline water.

“Having noticed that we were providing similar services to the communities under T/A Chauma, they wrote us a letter requesting for the same. We did our survey to see where we could get fresh water then we decided to erect solar powered water supply,” he said.

He further said that almost five water points will be constructed with one more at Nsungo Primary School, with an expectation that the communities will take care of the infrastructure through knowledge obtained from trainings they underwent on how to come up with a strategy for the sustainability of the water supply.

On her part, Ida Benard, one of the community members, hailed WHH for the intervention, calling it a timely relief from their struggle to access the precious commodity.

“Once this is complete, it will surely help us access water close to our homes. We used to go fetch water around 3:00 a.m. and come back around 8:00 or 9:00 a.m., which also poses a risk on our families’ safety,” she said.

Taking his turn, Edward Matias, chairperson for the water point committee in the area, hoped the development will go towards uplifting their lives, saying communities drink water from unprotected sources which result in spreading waterborne diseases like cholera.