St.Teresa Orphans Centre is located at Mletele Ward which is among peripheral wards in Songea Municipal Council. At the moment the centre is caring 146 orphans and is expecting to open Secondary School for the Orphans Children in few years coming. The major problem they are facing is the shortage of water especially during dry season. They have tape water which is not fulfilling their requirement due to the fact that, water is need throughout the day as a boarding Centre, but water supply for peripheral areas is only available for one or three day per week which affects their daily activities and their health. During the time where water are not found from the tape the always fetch water from the rivers the same applied to communities around the Centre facing a major problem of safe and clean water. The potential sources of clean water include (but are not limited to) boreholes, taps, and improved wells. For the residents of this area, local dug wells which are not safe at all is the common source of drinking water unfortunately the same sources are used for washing clothes and bathing within local wells, it is a common practice that often leaves many wells contaminated. Also, the wells are exposed, affording animals the opportunity to pollute the water.

The washing of soiled clothes and bathing, along with exposure to animals, clearly compromises the effectiveness of these wells as safe sources of drinking water. This problem is further compounded in the rainy season by soil runoff that can swamp some of the wells in dirt and soil. This renders the effected wells completely unusable..

Use of these wells for drinking water, which is often not boiled (due to the lack of cheaply available fuels), has led to the occurrence of the water borne diseases like diarrhea, intestinal parasites (such as worms), and bilharzias.
Water hand pump are complete water schemes suitable for serving small communities with portable water supplies. Primary schools, Secondary schools, Dispensaries, etc, which are not covered by other water supplies because of various reasons may suitably be supplied with water from a hand pump.
A water borehole carrying a water hand pump with a standard yield 800 liters per hour can meet water needs of people. A good water borehole equipped with hand pump can supply over 1000 liters per hour of safe water to isolated communities and thus reduce mostly women’s and students workload in fetching water from long distances.
This is good potential of potable ground water supplies in Songea District from existing water hand pumps constructed in Songea district and from existing surveys, over 506 water pumps were construction in villages and schools at shallow depth (with maximum depth of 35 m).The depth of water table is ranging between 15 meters to 25 meters depth. There are both hygienic and convenient model to operate.
SWN 80 AND SWN 81 model pump set are locally manufactured in Tanzania. A pump set complete with 4”PVC casings Up to a depth of 35 m cost slightly over Tsh. 8,000,000 (equivalent to $ 6,400) due to inflation and raising of transportation costs.

In hand pumps constructions we target a borehole yields of not less than 800 liters per hour at shallow depths suitable to service our beneficiaries, presently most of sub-urban secondary schools are not covered by other public water supplies, therefore, the project is going to provide two Hand pumps for Maposeni and Zimanimoto Secondary Schools which will make a total of 8 boreholes and 73 improved water wells.
Even after the construction of 73 improved Traditional water wells and ( 8) bore holes in the district (to the community and schools) the need to expand the project to other areas especially in secondary schools and community is still high (more than 3 requests from secondary schools and 5 villages have been received .
Major activities of the project.
i) Mobilizing the community to fully participate in project implementation .In mobilizing the community PADI will conduct meeting to the Center and people around the centre requested the support. During these meetings the community will get explanation on how the project will be conducted and other project conditions which include community contribution, formation of WMF and WMC. The meetings will help to create awareness and readiness of participating in the project implementation. In this project the school communities are required to construct pump house as their contribution. Contract of receiving the support will be signed only if they agree to construct the pump house as soon as the pump has been installed.
ii) Formation of Wells Monitoring Committees (WMC) which consist of 10 people who will be responsible in hand pump maintenance and repair, day to day care of the-pump.
iii) Formation of Water Maintenance Fund (WMF) which will be formed by the Community. The fund will be contributed by the communities aiming at supporting them to manage in maintaining and repair the pump.
iv) Transportation of building material from Morogoro; This activity will be done soon after receiving fund.
v) Drilling tube well to the depth of 25- 35 Miters with provision for re-drilling and construction of slab and flumes. The work will be done by water technician.
vi) Construction of Pump House: Construction of Pump House will be done by the school communities as their contribution to the project. Construction will be done soon after completing pump installation.
vii) Conducting one day training to 10 WMC on how to care and maintain the pump.

Experience relating to the water project:
PADI has been implementing this kind of water project for more than four years, beginning in 2003. The first implementation of the project was done in the Mletele ward at Liwumbu B streets from June to August 2003, where seven (7) improved local wells were built. PADI received funds from Peace Corps Tanzania under the supervision of Mr. Tim Hogan.
The second implementation of the project took place from September to November 2003, where PADI received funds from professors Miller and Rulfs of the USA and constructed 4 improved local wells.

The third project implementation took place from October 2005 to December 2005, funded by Help Age International, which enabled PADI to build 8 improved local water wells. The fourth implementation took place from July –August 2007.The project funded by Run For Africa, the funding enabled us to construct 13 improved traditional water wells and 1 bore hole.

The fourth project implementation took place from Nov. 2007 to Jan. 2008 where 7 improved traditional water wells were built, funded by Help Age International.
The fifth water project implementation took place from Sept. 2008 where 34 improved traditional water wells in Mshangano ward were built for the community and 3 bore holes were constructed in three Secondary schools funded by Blue Planet Run Foundation-BPRF.
The sixth water project implementation took place in 2009/2010 where two secondary schools (London and Mbulani) benefited from the project, each school got one 1 bore hole.

It is going to be done in one phase, then the fund will not be split into parts

The community will be responsible in day to day project monitoring through water committee, involved in pump house building, one day training and forming Well maintenance Fund

The expertise from water department from songea district will be involved in providing training to water committees and technical advices during project implementation including testing the suitability of water for human consuption

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