Amersham Madagascar Water Project

Can you imagine living without any access to clean running water and spending hours every day walking miles, your children often missing school, to fill buckets of water for your family from the nearest, usually contaminated water source. The villagers of Moratsiazo and Ibisy in Madagascar faced that situation every day, knowing that the water they drank was making them ill and they had no means to do anything about it.

On the 17th June their lives were changed by the inauguration of 17 clean running water stand pipes which they had helped to build by digging trenches and laying 20 kilometres of pipe serving two villages and two primary schools. Delighted villagers can be seen here at one of the stand pipes.

This achievement was initiated and overseen by Dieter Shaw of Rotary in Amersham cooperating with John Humphrys founder of the Kitchen Table Charities Trust, Rotary District 1260 (Bucks,Beds and Herts ) District 3310 ( Singapore ), The Rotary Foundation, and the Madagascar Development Fund. 

It all started when Mr Humphrys was a guest speaker telling Amersham Rotarains of his work with the Madagascar Development Fund - an organisation set up by former British Embassey employees to carry out charitable work across Madagascar.

The MDF has organised more than 200 projects across the country, including the installation of more than 80 safe, clean water systems.

It was after hearing Mr Humphrys speak that the Rotary club decided to get involved.  Rotarians joined forces with locals in February to build simple, gravity fed, safe clean water systems, consisting of covered conrete 'capture tanks' to collect and protect water directly from the spring heads.  They use water from reliable nature springs located in the hills above the villages.

Water is piped to reservoirs and onto stand pipes located at strategic points around the villages including Ahitansoa and Moratsiazo primary schooles where for the first time more than 250 children will have water to drink and wash their hands.

Expereience has shown that easy access to safe, clean water allows more girls to go to school, reduces illness and the proportion of liminited income spent on medicines and medials assistance; improves the general health of communities; increasea productivity and contributes to growing prosperity and better living conditions. 

Mr Humphrys said: "Safe, clean water is fundamental to good health, a basic human right and one of the Kitchen Table Charities Trusts main focuese in countries throught Africa and beyond."

Andrew Warren
Amersham
3rd August 2017