Let the water flow!

As in many regions of Ethiopia, the latest Menschen für Menschen project region of Jeldu lacks access to clean drinking water. The situation is particularly dire in the districts where implementation of the first measures began in 2017: Here, only one in ten people has access to clean drinking water!

In order to provide families in the town of Boni and surrounding communities with clean, healthy water, construction of a water supply system began in early 2019. We have captured a few impressions:

The drilling rig can already be seen from afar. Before the actual drilling, a detailed survey was carried out by Ethiopian specialists. They examined the ground conditions to identify those locations best suited for drilling the well shaft.

Several sites were found suitable for drilling. The water obtained here will be pumped by generator to a hill about 2.5 kilometers away and stored in a reservoir. The natural water pressure is used to pipe the water to a total of 14 extraction points in Boni and the surrounding communities.

At a depth of about 160 meters, a water reservoir with enough water pressure was finally found. "This is just excellent," says project manager Gebeyehu Seyoum happily, "because now we can quickly proceed with the construction of the water supply system."

The construction of the water supply system for the small town of Boni is a mammoth project that goes through many stages before it is completed. In Ethiopia, this kind of project is complicated by the fact that construction work is not possible during the rainy season.

However, when we visited the project again in January 2020, a lot had already happened: the first extraction points had been completed and the public showers were being built.

First, however, the extraction points have to be completed, the reservoir in the city has to be built and finally the connection between the water source, the reservoir 2.5 kilometers away and the extraction points has to be closed.

A total of 14 extraction points like this one are being built in Boni. "When everything is completed, each of these extraction points will supply around 270 people with clean drinking water," explains project manager Gebeyehu Seyoum.

Work is in full swing in Boni to complete the extraction points and public showers, which will then be connected to the water reservoir in the city. The reservoir is fed from the water deposit 2.5 kilometers away, which was made usable by deep drilling.

To give us a concrete picture of the project's progress, Gebeyehu, project manager of the Jeldu region, and construction manager Akale accompany us to the excavation site, where the reservoir for the water supply system will be built: "The water reservoir will hold 200,000 liters and feed the community's extraction points and shower facilities. This is equivalent to about 10,000 of the water cans commonly used here," says Gebeyehu, explaining the capacity of the future lifeline of the Boni community.

The next important step will be laying the pipelines that connect the individual components. Many people from the community will be involved in this task. Worki's husband Atomsa says, "When we heard that a project would be implemented here to bring us clean water, I was immediately excited. Of course, as a community, we will help to dig the pipeline trenches."
We will of course continue to report on the construction progress of the water supply system for Boni.