Water for All: pedal pumps and wells for families

Dear Donor,

Three months have passed since the last monitoring trip in Malawi, where Aleimar’s Country manager Angela has visited all the project on the field with three Aleimar’s volunteers. Their enthusiasm and positive feedback about the active projects in the country are pushing us to engage and work always more in favor of all the children and communities helped also thanks to your contribution.

During the last 9 years Aleimar has delivered 50 pedal water pumps in Malawi, mostly in Mangochi District. Thanks to the project “Water for all” we have supported the local population from to main aspects: on one hand increasing their access to water has improved their health conditions; on the other hand, the local community – in particular the workers active in the agricultural sector – have seen their crops raising.

Aleimar not only provides pedal pumps; we also train the local population in order to acquire the best practices and methods that allow them to use these instruments in the best way. Thanks to this, local farmers can obtain up to 3 crops every year instead of just one. Aleimar also identifies groups of families in charge of taking care of the maintenance of the pedal pumps, so that they can last through time.

Our country manager Angela reports that since the Covid pandemic stated all the schools must have access to water to remain open. More than 300 schools do not have access to water and cannot operate according to current regulations. Attending school does not mean just receiving an education, it also means receiving the only daily meal. That’s why our project is so important!

Thanks to your support we can reach our goals and improve the living conditions of a lot of children and families. Thank you!

Dear Donor,

we are glad to share with you great news from Malawi! After two years of break caused by the pandemics and all the travel restrictions due to the health emergency, our country manager Angela, with the volunteers Andrea, Valentina and Fabiano are finally back to this wonderful land. After almost 20 hours of travel they have landed on the 15^th of October and the periodic monitoring trip has started. They have been immediately wrapped by the typical African landscape that characterizes our collective imagination: red ground, baobabs and a multitude of people along the streets with their bikes or by foot carrying heavy weights.

Despite all the difficulties, our local representative Father Kimu has never stopped and he is always working hard to assure the best education and quality of life to all the children and teenagers supported by our projects. The local population and all the children have warmly welcomed Aleimar and our volunteers with dances and chants, making them feel part of their villages. This monitoring trip is the occasion not only to visit all our projects on the field, but it is also the possibility to hug once again close friends after two years of separation and just distance communication.

The day after their arrival, Angela and all Aleimar volunteers have immediately supervised the functioning of a new well and they have visited the excavation of two new wells in Mangochi District that will be active next week. On the fifth day pedal pumps have been delivered with great joy and: they will allow the local population the access to clean water that will also reduce illnesses and long walks in search for this precious good.

Thanks to your support Aleimar has been able to promote a great impact improving life conditions of a lot of families in many rural villages. We will not stop and we want to assure access to clean water to as many people as possible. Your help is precious and generates a concrete change!

Thank you

Dear Donor,

Malawi is one of the poorest Countries of Africa and now is facing a serious crisis. The pandemic has led to dramatic consequences from an economic and social point of view. We should also add the strong floods that hit the country between January and February 2022. The rainy season has arrived late compared to the usual period, causing damages to structures, houses and fields (in particular corn, one of the firs sources of livelihood of the country). Moreover, the scarcity of crops contributes to the increase of malnutrition rates, which is a real plague that affects the most fragile people: children. As a consequence of the economic crisis, the healthcare system is facing critical conditions: the majority of deaths is caused by severe malnutrition, pneumonia or endemic diseases.

Unemployment rate, which was already high, has increased during lockdowns and now families can’t afford primary goods. Beside severe health and economic problems, our local representatives underline serious problems in the education sector. Even if Malawi is a Country rich in water thanks to Lake Malawi, the third biggest lake of Africa, this primary good is not easily accessible by everyone. Almost 300 schools do not have access to drinking water and children have to wash themselves with water collected from the rivers. In fact, women and children have to walk for long distances in order to pick up some water, which sometimes is not drinkable and increases the spread of illnesses.

Thanks to your help in 2021 we had been able to build one well in the Vilage of Chimwalire, in Mangochi District. Thanks to your support 85 families can now have access to clean water! In 2022, due to the great need of water in villages and schools, we want to build a second well for the Full Primary School of Chimwala, always in Mangochi District. Our local representative Father Kimu is working with Aleimar in order to raise funds for its construction. We would like to buy also 10 foot pumps for the irrigation so that local families can cultivate their fields, increasing corn crops that can be sold in the markets. One well costs almost 7.370 USD, whereas one foot pump costs 315 USD. With your help we will reach this important goal together!

Thank you!

The current situation in Malawi is still worrying. The main problem is not the Covid-19 pandemic itself, but its social and economic dramatic consequences that touch the country and its 19 million inhabitants. Less than 5% of the population has received a dose of vaccine and in general they have received Astra Zeneca. Moreover, in January 2022 Tornado Ana and several floods have hit the south of the country, destroying fields, villages and schools, worsening the already fragile situation of Malawi. Fortunately, rain has not caused huge damages in Mangochi District, but a lot of houses and structures near the Educational Centre directed by Father Joseph Kimu, our local representative, have been ruined and many people have asked for help to Father Kimu.

Father Joseph Kimu has reported that in St. John Schools life is carrying on regularly. In January the new school year 2021/2022 restarted. Children are already used to employing face masks and following all basic sanitary rules. This is not the same for all the children of Malawi of course. Unfortunately, schools that do not have direct access to clean water are numerous. According to the latest Covid-19 instructions, the Government requires that each school has to have direct access to a source of water in order to continue its activities.

At the moment, 600 girls attend school at the St. John Centre and there they receive an accommodation, food and high-quality education. Aleimar keep on providing clean water to many children supported: we have just built a well in Chimwalire Village, in Mangochi District.

Now we are working in order to build another well in the school of Chimwala, that shelters more than 2000 children; thanks to this well, not just all the students of the school will have direct access to clean water, but this fundamental right will be recognized also to 70 families of the closest villages!

We want to thank all of you for your great engagement that allowed us to continue supporting all the children involved in our projects and thanks to your help we will build together a precious well for Chimwala Primary School!

Thank you!

According to the WHO, as of today the number of confirmed cases of Covid is 61.676, the number of deaths is 2.290, while the number of vaccine doses administered is 1.167.063. Restrictions remain in place because the situation is already exacerbated by the lack of clean water sources for the population. In Malawi it’s mainly women and children that have the task to find water, they have to walk a long way and bring on the top of their head tanks up to 20 liters. There are no clean water wells near the villages, so people feel obligated to take water from small water streams or from rainwater wells. With the water collected they cook, shower, wash clothes and cookware. Various statistics show how between children under 5 years of age, one out of five dies because of diseases transmitted by polluted water. We have to defend the right to clean water because in Malawi lots of people is still dying from diarrhea, cholera, typhus and hospitals are overcrowded. The rooms of Mangochi’s hospital host double the number of people required and some patients are placed on the floors of the hallways because of insufficiency of beds. This isn’t the right way patients should be treated and hospital staff should work peacefully.

In addition to the Coronavirus epidemic, in 2020 a cyclone destroyed cultivated fields, villages and schools and the consequences on the social and economic sector are still felt. Lots of children couldn’t go to school and that aggravated the risk to fall in the trap of malnutrition/undernutrition. Families find it hard to ensure food for their children and the school was the only place that could offer them a meal a day. For schools to be open there is the necessity to respect the measures put in place by the government to contain the spread of the epidemic: the first and most important is to have direct access to clean water in the building. For us access to clean water represents a “second vaccine” in the fight for the containment of the contagion.

In a letter of august our local representative Father Joseph Kimu, underlined the necessity to build hand pump operated wells inside the schools, specifically for the recently built St. John Centre, the primary school J. Matembwera in Katuli and in the villages of Kwisimba and Ngalipa, all of which are located in the district of Mangochi, distant 2Km from the nearest well.

Aleimar wants to contribute to the construction of the four wells because it will allow children to regain their education, for families to worry less about finding clean sources of water and to ease the fight for the spread of diseases. An example of the efficacy of this strategy is given by treadle pumps for the irrigation of cultivated fields. Father Joseph told us that the poor families who received them, thanks to the Colombini family of Milan, were very happy with the harvest. One of the beneficiaries invited him to visit his garden that produced 2.000 cabbages, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, green bell peppers, and the list goes on. Both methods are efficient and do not produce harmful emissions.

Moreover, Father Joseph says that few students came to school because the school bus service was suspended to limit the contagion. Only those who live near the school and those who have a bicycle are able to attend lessons. About the students who live in hostels, he sees the desire to work hard to get good results. He was able to help them with grants to complete their education. Other good news is the inauguration of the Information Technology laboratory and the library. He is currently searching funds to build a new hostel for the girls who attend high school, which must be finished by the end of the year and that will host 128 girls., the total cost amounts to 40.000 Euros. He says he gets joy from promoting education for girls and by giving them a safe place to learn ang grow.

Thanks to your donations, from the 29^th of June till the 12^th of October 2021, we collected 3.595,94 USD $. You are very kind and we are proud to have such a caring audience!