WATER

Lack of water is a huge problem in rural northern Tanzania.  Children at most schools must carry heavy jugs of water to school for cooking lunch, which means they first have to find a water source.  Drilling for water is very expensive.  Friends of Meali created campus-wide rainwater collection systems at Meali Primary School, with three 50,000-liter storage tanks to supply beautiful clean, clear water throughout the 5-month dry season.  Each teacher housing building has its own, smaller, convenient water tank.  The large tanks required special design considerations to withstand the area’s occasional small earthquakes.  Both Losirwa Primary School and Oldeani Primary School have their own water supply.  Losirwa’s water is from public pipes leading down from the mountains, but these pipes have now been tapped into by new local housing and Losirwa needs their own dedicated water line.  Friends of Meali and Losirwa are talking about our contributing the money for the pipes and they doing the work.  This is still a project being discussed.  Oldeani will need at least one more large tank to help it get through the dry season and any building we build at Losirwa gets a water cistern that catches the roof runoff in the rainy season. Losirwa will probably need more as its student and teacher populations grow.