Safe Community Water Supply
Country: Rwanda
Technology: Safe water
Price: 17.28 EUR/t CO2
Description
This project restores and repairs existing boreholes to provide clean drinking water to Rwandan communities, removing the need to boil water for purification. Each borehole is up to 100 metres deep, and can be operated with a simple hand pump. The boreholes will be maintained over the project lifetime.
Context
The quality of water in Rwanda is typically not safe to drink; for clean water, families must either boil it over inefficient wood-fuelled fires or travel long distances. The burden to source water, sometimes hours each day, or suffer respiratory illnesses from inhaling smoke from the indoor fires, especially impacts women and children. Boreholes offer an excellent solution, however, communities are often unable to maintain them over the long term.
Benefits
By providing safe water to communities, this project sparks a chain of positive benefits. Children do not have to spend as much time gathering water or firewood, so they can dedicate time to studying. Families resources are freed up as they don’t have to spend money or time on firewood, instead, they can take part in other income-generating activities, household tasks or taking care of each other. Water-borne and respiratory diseases are reduced thanks to better sanitary conditions and less indoor smoke. By removing the need to boil water the project significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions as well as deforestation pressures on surrounding forests where firewood is sourced.
