The Oasis Foundation
Grace Village
Ethiopia

Water Proposal - For Clean and Safe Drinking Water

Background

The country with the lowest percentage of population with access to safe water is Ethiopia, with 22 percent, with rural Ethiopia being the most poorly served in drinking water. Where there is little water sanitation also becomes a problem leading to major causes of illness and even death in the young and those already compromised through illness and malnutrition, in Ethiopia only 6 percent of the population having access to any form of sanitation.

Grace Village is situated in Chumay Kuchet a small neighbourhood in the larger government area of Tahtay Koraro as previously outlined.  Chumay Kuchet has a population of three thousand six hundred (3600) inhabitants, or Grace Village with one hundred (100) residents half of which are orphaned and abandoned children and the surrounding community that has five hundred households with an average of seven people per household many have more.  We have a small health unit that accepts women with childbirth injuries, and those who are dying with no one to care for them who may come for palliative care.

Grace Village is strategically placed eight kilometres from Shire town on the main road to the main town of Gondar so in addition to local people at least another two hundred (200) or more people pass the front gate who would gain from access to clean potable water. Camel drivers, donkey driven carts, and those on foot once they know there is good drinking water will stop and fill their gourds and plastic bottles for the journey into the northern deserts of northwestern Tigray.

Problem Statement

The Chumay Kuchet within the Tahtay Koraro neighbourhood area has very poor underwater supplies. In the radius of 5 kilometres around Grace Village, the focal centre for drinking water supply, there are two boreholes, which provide 2 litres per second only, because of the low underwater source.

Goal

To provide clean and safe drinking water to Grace Village and the surrounding Kuchet of Chumay

Objectives

• Combine all the various water systems at Grace Village into a single one.
• Enlarge current reservoirs and tankers
• Improve current lake water collection source
• Develop collection methods for roof rain water
• Develop the drinking water delivery system for the surrounding Kuchet of Chumay
• Monitor the efficacy of the various collection methods and storage regularly

Current Situation

At Grace Village there are one hundred people dependent on water, what is currently available is:

The artificial concrete lake with a radius of twenty-seven (27) metres with the capacity of eleven thousand four hundred forty four (11,445) cubic metres.

The constraints related to this artificial lake are mainly due to poor sealing that has caused leakage through the floor or base of the said lake wherein the water has seeped away. In addition to this due to the environmental temperatures and the very low humidity of North- Western Tigray Zone, high levels or water loss through evaporation has occurred leaving the lake dry long before the next annual rain fall that would normally replenish it.

The solutions would be to re-seal well with high levels of good concrete, other sealants are not ideal due to the high local temperatures that would dissolve the sealant. Concrete once well applied would be the best solution. In the past two years additional layers of cement have been applied but the leakage continues. A plastic or other material cover would reduce the evaporation

Adjoining the artificial lake is a tanker of nine thousand (9,000) litres that is functional but due to the poor output of the artificial lake has not water stored in it. So that correcting the lake would make this tanker productive.

There is a large reservoir with a capacity of four hundred (400) cubic metres; it is well sealed and covered efficiently storing water. It is spontaneously spring filled; filling readily especially during the rainy season with an effective downward seepage of water towards the reservoir.

In addition to the above, there are two water towers able to store eighteen thousand (18,000) litres between the two towers.

Project Design

We would like to combine the current systems of collection of water into a single scheme. This will require carefully planning and a well thought out review of the various existing components currently being used and integration of the new collection methods.

The suggestions are as follows:

• To use the current system with some alterations such as improving the artificial lake storage capabilities and to expand the reservoir to hold larger quantities of water.
• To introduce further rainwater collection capabilities through collection of rain water off the buildings with corrugated roves. This would require the following:
• New specially made water collection guttering on the current roves
• Appropriate channels from the guttering towards storage collection containers
• Construct water storage containers near to the rainwater collection systems 
• To design the best method for channeling all water collection to a single source that can then supply the recipient requirements.
• To obtain water pumps for the tanker, the water towers and the rain water collection storage tankers.
• To supply water to the Chumay community through carefully managed delivery that would be monitored by the Grace Village Guard. The tap would be protected to avoid abuse or misuse such as building requirements or other not drinking water requirements; ideally, a separate water tower and pump should supply this water point. There would be timed water distribution for example from 06.00 until 10.00 hours and then again from 17.00 until 20.00 hours.