Summary
Rainwater collection system for drinking and hand washing for students and staff
Background
Currently the only source of water at the school is a near surface well that is considered to be unsafe for drinking. Establishing rainwater collection and havesting at the school will be done as a demonstration project incorporated into the student cirriculum. Student (and staff) participation in the design and construction will be part of the program, training them to duplicate the principals of simple rainfall havesting techniques in there own homes and villages.
Location
Makali, Tonkolili District, Sierra LeoneAttachments
Focus
Primary Focus: Education
Secondary Focus: Drinking Water - Schools
People Getting Safe Drinking Water: 330
School has 300+ students and staff of 10 with no source of safe drinking water at the facility. Collected and stored water will be also be used by food vendors and visitors from the nearby village.
School Children Getting Water: 300
The 300+ students come from Makali and surrounding villages up to 16 km away. Most are Temne, the majority people of the Northern Provence
People Getting Sanitation: 330
Hand washing facilities will be used by students, staff, vendors and visitors.
People Getting Other Benefits: 300
Installation of the rainwater harvesting system will be accomplished by the students under the direction of Bank On Rain personnel so that they might install smaller versions in their homes and villages.
Start Date: 2011-08-22
Completion Date: 2011-09-01
Technology Used:
At 3600mm of precipitation per year, Sierra Leone has an excellent rainfall resource. The Barina Agricultural Secondary School consists of three main buildings, each with a metal roof, offering a total collection area of 966 square meters. Plenty of water can be collected during the wet months (May - October), but tankage calculations must supply sufficient storage to cover usage during the driest period, January and February.
All of the materials required to build the system are available in Sierra Leone. Food-grade polyethylene tanks, PVC pipe to be cut in half for gutters, taps and screening to exclude insects and debris. All required materials can be trnsprted from Freetown with a small truck.
Phases:
The project will be completed in one phase with Bank On Rain personnel on-site for a 10 day period to train, advise, demonstrate and participate in the construction.
Community Organization:
The planning for this project has been initiated with the cooperation and involvement of the school Headmaster, J.C. Tarawali and the assistance of the staff, principally Eric Silverman, a Peace Corps Volunteer teacher. Once installed, the system will be maintained by the students under the direction of the school staff. Smaller systems appropriate to a household will be installed on some of the smaller school buildings to demonstrate to students and future classes a system that could be installed in their homes, thus continuing the educational aspects of the project.
Government Interaction:
This project is not connected to any Government programs as the school is run by a Catholic charity, but if approved, a written plan explaining the project, who is implementing it and why it is important to the school and community will be supmitted to the Deputy Director of Education for the Tonkolili District, the Kunike Barina paramount chief and the local councilor.
Ancillary activities:
There is interest in using rainwater collection in conjunction with the school garden, but that is beyond the scope of the proposed plan. We hope that exposure to and participation in the design and construction of a rainwater collection system will encourage students to build appropriately scaled systems for their own homes or encourage such installations in their villages.
Other Issues:
During rebel army occupation in the 1990's all of the books in the school library were burned and funding has not been available to replace them. The school staff have requested that any books that could be donated would be very well received. We intend to ship an assortment of hand tools for use in the rainfall harvest system installation to be left with the school. These tools will be shipped in two recycled "fish totes", food-grade polyethylene containers, each of 950 liter capacity that will be used for the smaller scaled demonstration installation. The hand tools will only occupy a small amount of the space in the totes and we intend to fill the remainder of the space with donated books and others that we can purchase to donate to the library.
Maintenance Revenue:
System maintenance will consist of periodic cleaning/repair of pre-filter screens and repair/replacement of any taps that develop leaks or other malfunctions. The tools that will be donated to the school will permit students and staff to duplicate the installation process if system expansion in desired. Small scale systems may be installed in homes in surrounding villages as a revenue generating activity by the school using the tools and knowledge resulting from this project.
Maintenance Cost: $50
Metrics:
Prior art before metrics
Cost: $23,760
Budget for project consisting of installation of 4 - 5000 liter polyehylene water tanks and 2 - 950 liter recycled "fish totes" . The "totes" are to demonstrate the use of recycled containers suitable for household-sized rain harvest and storage tanks.
Co Funding Amount: $23,460
Bank-On-Rain (www.bank-on-rain.com)
Community Contribution Amount: $300
In-kind labor from students and staff duirng the system installation