Wesnet bills Hope Water as beacon of hope towards achieving SDG 6

Water and sanitation umbrella organization of Non – Government Organization (NGOs) , Community Based (CBOs) , Private Sector and individuals (WASH) sector in Malawi which ensures coordination among these stakeholders and with the government, WESNET has commended Hope Water Project saying the project is crucual towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal number 6.

Sustainable Development Goal 6 declares the importance of achieving “clean water and sanitation for all”. It is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations General Assembly to succeed the former Millennium Development Goals.

Speaking in an exclusive interview, Wesnet Executive Director, Willies Chanozga Mwandira commended the project saying is in line again with Malawi agenda 2063.

“The initiative is very good and in line with current national water policy, where you would like to bring the water supply services closer to the people, and for him to bring the water supply service to that number of people at Dowa Turn off I think it’s something that is highly commendable,” he said.

Mwandira said even government will really appreciate that type of work, the model that he has used, is the right type of model where is supplying water, and then people are paying for the service at minimum to ensure that those services are sustainable.

“The issue of sustainability, where the supply of the service is trying to charge some little bit of fee for maintenance, operation and maintenance of the scheme that has introduced is very important,” he said.

According to Wesnet, there is need for some other people who are capable of doing that across the country can also learn from what Mr Semu is doing if they can abstract some water somewhere and distribute to a few communities.

“That’s the way. And in terms of thinking about universal service coverage and target of 2030 that’s where to go,” he said.

Wesnet according to Mwandira believe that Good water or safe water is, essential for well being of people, and is essential for proper sanitation, and is essential even for other businesses, other sectors like education.

“You cannot do education without safe water. You can’t do proper businesses without safe water. So what Mr Semu is doing is highly commended. This is very, very, very important.

Hope for a Child Foundation UK an organization formed by a dedicated person, the one Thom Herrings who always put the plight of people at heart is supporting people at Dowa turn-off with portable water as years have by with people at the area having water problems.

A survey by this publication has shown that people mostly women from the area are now really benefiting from the water project as to what Pililani Chapotela of Mtakumana 2 village, Traditional Authority Mkukulu GVH Phereni is describing it as a game changer.

“We have been traveling long distances to fetch water sometimes even at night, even to the extent fighting within the boreholes premises but we are very thankful to Mr. Semu for the project.

“We are just pleading with Mr. Semu to extend the project into other areas, as it is still a challenge for other people nearly Dowa to get access to portable water,” Chapotela lamented.

Chapotela also said as a community, they are complying to the plea made my Hon. Halima Daudi when commissioning the project as she said that everyone should take full responsibility of taking care for the facilities and that people in the community are really making sure that the facilities are not vandalized but Chapotela asked fellow community people to continue taking care the facility as it is helping lives of many.

On his part Maxwell Josam of GVH Thambwe in Dowa turn-off also said as a man he was really affected with water challenges as his wife was always having problems to get portable water to the extent of leaving the houses early in the morning but now they are at liberty as they are managing to get access to water at a short distance, all thankes to Innocent Semu for the great project.

BUT SEMU HAS ONE WORD

“We dont have electricity at the intake, we are using generator to pump water for the community. This is becoming expensive. This is the same reason we are calling upon officials from Dowa to speed up process of installing electricity at the our intake,” said Mr Sem.

Mr Semu has expressed organization’s commitment towards helping more communities in providing the much needed clean water as one way of complimenting Government efforts.