Every Care for Africa program starts with water. A deep bore goes into the ground at a school or a village, and for the first time there is clean water where people already are. That water now reaches 29,000 people across the Tarime district.
The moment a new bore reaches water.
It is almost always the women and the girls. They walk kilometres to a stream or a pond, fill what they can carry, and walk back. The water makes the family sick, which means more time lost, and the walk happens again tomorrow.
A girl who spends her mornings fetching water is not in a classroom. Everybody involved knows it, including her.
This is the part that surprises people, and it is the reason the bores go where they go.
Put the water at the school and the family’s arithmetic changes in one move. The water they need is now where the classroom is, so they send their daughter to school to get it. She collects it during the day, she is in class in between, and she carries it home clean in the afternoon.
Nobody had to be persuaded that education matters. The bore just removed the reason she was being kept home. That is why water comes first, and it is why everything else in the model sits on top of it.
Carrying water home in Tarime.
Every bore has a village, a year, a number of people it serves and somebody who paid for it. Care for Africa has never installed one that was not asked for.
Year | Location | People Served | Funded By |
|---|---|---|---|
2011 | Surubu Primary School, Surubu Village | Up to 9,000 | Funder not recorded |
2013 | Mtana Primary School, Mtana Village | Over 3,000 | Australian Government through AusAid |
2013 | Kiterere Primary School, Kiterere Village | 1,200 | Australian Government through AusAid |
2014 | Kongo Primary School, Kongo Village, Rorya District | Over 1,500 | Launceston Care for Africa Ball |
2015 | Bisarwi Primary School, Bisarwi Village | 2,700 | Launceston Care for Africa Ball |
2016 | Komosawa Primary School, Surubu Village | 1,000 | The Rotary Club of Glenorchy, Tasmania |
2018 | Tarime Government Hospital, Tarime township | 500 a day | Charlie Perry, gap student volunteer |
2018 | Magreth Remagwe School, Remagwe Village | Over 5,000 | Longford Blooms and The Rotary Club of Launceston |
2018 | Nyamerambaro Primary School, Nyamerambaro Village | 500 | Australian Government, Direct Aid Program |
2020 | Bulimba, Bisarwi Village | 500 | Water Bores for Tanzania, The Rotary Club of Central Launceston |
2023 | Surubu Reticulation, Surubu Village | 2,500 | Care for Africa general funds |
2023 | Nyamatanke, Bisarwi Village | 1,000 | Water Bores for Tanzania, The Rotary Club of Central Launceston |
2023 | Nyabhanosi, Bisarwi Village | 750 | Water Bores for Tanzania, The Rotary Club of South Launceston |
2023 | Makora 2, Bisarwi Village | 800 | Water Bores for Tanzania, The Rotary Club of Balwyn, Victoria |
2023 | Songambele, Mtana Village | 850 | Gaylene Slater |
2023 | Sulubu Kati, Surubu Village | 1,200 | Water Bores for Tanzania, The Rotary Club of Balwyn, Victoria |
2023 | Bukenye Secondary School, Bisarwi Village | 1,350 | Water Bores for Tanzania, The Rotary Club of Central Launceston |
2024 | Kembwe Primary School | 1,056 | Water Bores for Tanzania, The Rotary Club of Central Launceston |
Nine of these were funded through Water Bores for Tanzania, a Rotary initiative convened by John Carswell, working with the Rotary Clubs of Central Launceston, South Launceston and Balwyn.
Every one of them was drilled because somebody in that village asked for it.
Care for Africa also installed a water harvesting system at the Surubu Dispensary, with a 70,000 litre underground tank serving up to 9,000 people. Funded by the Australian Government through AusAid.
Diana Butler OAM, Chief Executive Officer and Founder
Abdallah Obedi, Country Manager
Richard Taylor, WASH Coordinator
Mangira Drilling, Tarime district water engineers
Mangira Drilling are the water engineers who do the drilling in Tarime.
Water without sanitation puts the water itself back at risk. Human waste returns to the soil, the soil reaches the water table, and the community is back where it started with a more expensive hole in the ground.
So a sanitation block follows the bore. They are built to the Tanzanian and United Nations standards for rural sanitation, and each one includes a private room with water and soap, so the girls at that school no longer miss a week of every month.
The community builds them with us. That is not a courtesy, it is the condition. A block the village helped build is a block the village maintains.
A tippy tap is a five-litre container, three sticks, a length of string and a bar of soap. You step on the pedal, the container tips, and you wash your hands without touching anything.
They cost almost nothing, they are built from whatever is already in the village, and they are repaired by the people who use them. Every school we work in has them.
On behalf of RUWASA we thank Care for Africa for helping us in the Tarime district. The area is dry. The Tarime Rural Water and Sanitation Agency is providing water to the people but cannot reach everywhere, and that is why Care for Africa supported those areas. Without Care for Africa, those communities would not have access to clean water.
Charity donations of $2 or more to Care for Africa are tax-deductible in Australia.
