JB Dondolo provides water to rural Matabeleland

Judith Phiri, Business Reporter
A NON-PROFIT organisation, has embarked on a campaign to ensure rural communities have access to water in the Matabeleland region, as part of efforts to deliver clean water and help address conditions causing the outbreak of water-borne diseases.

Founded in 2016, the organisation aims to remove barriers of access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene in underserved and impoverished communities to reduce poverty and promote gender equity. JB Dondolo founder and chief executive officer Ms Lumbie Mlambo said they intended to drill six boreholes for rural communities in Matobo District.

“Four boreholes have been drilled so far and only two were successful, while the other two failed due to the water tables being far. We have solar-enabled one borehole so far to prepare it for irrigation and farming,” she said during a tour of the sites where the boreholes were being drilled last week.

Ms Mlambo who is based in the United States of America came along with Ms Anita Hawkins, a global philanthropist, who is one of the donors for the borehole drilling project.

“Ms Hawkins is no stranger to Africa and she is a strong supporter of the work that I am doing to ensure access to water for women and girls. This being her first time to Zimbabwe, she was keen to see the water projects and talk to women and girls,” said Ms Mlambo.

She said with Matobo lacking access to clean water and women and girls bearing the responsibility of collecting water, their main goal was to get clean water for women and girls close to their homes. Ms Mlambo said the drilling of the boreholes was initiated to assist women and girls reduce the amount of time they spend trying to look for clean water sources.

“In some areas women and girls walk up to 18 miles a day and with our solution, we save them time. We use water as a gateway to get women and girls out of poverty. Ms Hawkins also handed out some sanitary pads to women and empathised with the pregnant women when she found out about their lack of not only water but also food,” she said.

She said besides Matobo District, in Nyamandlovu in Umguza District they have installed a filtration system, however, they were in need of an additional filtration system for a secondary school so that it does not have to share water with the clinic. Ms Mlambo said they also needed a water system for the community.

“We are tackling the sanitation issue in Nyamandlovu at Igusi Clinic and also need to extend the maternity wing and bring in water to the new addition. We also need to replace the toilet system with flushing toilets,” said Ms Mlambo.

Ms Mlambo said most of their sources of funding were donations from individuals and corporations as well as grants. Ms Thengiwe Sibanda from Pale Village in Matobo said the water project had assisted villagers to have access to clean water.

“We used to travel long distances to look for water and most of the time we do share the water sources with animals as our area is under National Parks. This left us vulnerable to water-borne diseases as some animals would decompose in the water.

We are grateful for the boreholes drilled in our areas as this will go a long way in addressing the water challenges we had been facing for some years,” said Ms Sibanda.

Another villager, Ms Maithanu Dube of Shazhabuhwa Village said as women in the community they were now able to do gardening.

“We can now have our vegetable gardens and cut down on costs as we had other communities selling vegetables such as tomatoes, onions and leafy greens to us, but now we can do it ourselves and feed our families.”

Matobo District Ward 16 Councillor Riflen Sibanda said the boreholes drilled have brought development to the six villages in the ward with estimations showing that each village has about 200 to 300 households.