Water Well Repair

In the area that E3 Worldwide works, we embarked on a new campaign to repair water wells and establish permaculture model gardens in the grey water runoff from these repaired wells. M-1, Clean Water for Malawi, and E3 Worldwide joined together to repair 10 wells over the course a single week for this first phase. Over the next month, Clean Water will provide borehole management training for the villages that received and will receive repair for their wells. In addition, E3 Worldwide will start to train and implement the permaculture model gardens. We will proceed with additional well repairs in the area following the completion of the first full phase.  

But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. - John 4:14

Due to the broken bore hole the people in this village had to resort back to this hand dug water well as their water source.

This is a picture of another shallow hand-dug well used for the water source for the people (as well as the animals) of this village.  

At each well people from the village and the village well committee participated in the dismantling, diagnosing, and repair of the bore holes.  Most fixes were simple but required specialized parts and materials that are difficult for the villages to attain. 

Above (in the maroon shirt) is the Group Village Headman for several villages that were supported by this borehole that had been broken roughly 6 years.  They fixed it several times on their own with locally available materials but the repairs would not last.

I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.- Isaiah 44:3

Another picture of a shallow well where water is attained if the well is broken.

In the near future, a similar campaign for borehole repair will be started in Chiseka and the villages that surround where we live. Clean Water for Malawi (known as Clean Water for Africa in Malawi) will partner with M-1 Ministries and Rainbow CDC to reach the local villages. At this time, there are over 60 wells that are broken and not providing safe, clean drinking water for the people of these villages. If you would like to participate with us in this borehole repair project, then please contact us.

E3 Permaculture training at Rainbow!

This week E3's permaculture gardener, Dennis, took some time off from his thriving garden and aquaponics facilities at Gusu/Jidi villages to travel to Rainbow to teach permaculture classes.  Dennis has been coming to Rainbow for some time now but the interest in permaculture is really taking off in this area.  We now have 12-15 people (men and women) coming to weekly meetings and training in our permaculture training garden right beside our house.  

This committee/club represents 10 different villages in the area and was started after a recent training week held by Dennis back in August.  The participants decided amongst themselves to form a committee and have weekly training and meetings.  Each participant has to have a garden they are working on and they are supposed to be transitioning the garden from a monoculture type of garden (where only one crop is grown on one row for example) to a permaculture garden (where crops are grown together to assist each other in the growing process).  

By using permaculture the costs of fertilizer and pesticides are gone.  No fertilizers or pesticides are used in our training garden. And in a country that is arguably one of the poorest in the world this will allow more people to have a way to grow and afford food to provide for their family.

Above Dennis is teaching and training the committee in our permaculture training garden.  

Jeremy, Felix, and SM listen in to the training

When we first moved to Rainbow back in January this was all a big dirt field.  

There is much left to do but we've come a long way.

Some of our youngest kids listen in on the lessons.  Our desire is to train all of our children in these farming and gardening methods as they grow into adulthood and start providing for a family of their own.  

Dennis and the committee visited each of the participants gardens to have more hands on training.  Here we are visiting Innocent's garden which is behind Bunda Mtn.

The hand dug water access in the garden.  No well or other water sources.

Innocent's garden

Above and below are pictures of Rainbow's gardens that Jonathan grows for us.  He has a patch of land about a kilometer away from Rainbow that is rich in fertile soil and water.  Rainbow employs him to keep our children and staff fed with fresh vegetables.  Jeremy is now over the gardening and farming of Rainbow so we went along to see the progress of the gardens. 

Jonathan's garden: moving towards being completely permaculture pangono pangono (little by little).

Dennis (left) and Jonathan (right)

You can see Jonathan is using some permaculture here with different plants and vegetables planted together to help each other grow and keep pests away.  

Strawberries!  Strawberries in Bunda are THE BEST OF THE BEST!  Seriously!  You've never had sweeter juicier strawberries anywhere in the world!

Jeremy sampling the crops!

Rainbow is thankful to E3 for allowing Dennis to train our men and women in this very different and yet effective way of gardening.  It's a hard concept for them to grab hold of but they are very interested and very willing to learn.  All of the Rainbow vegetable gardens (Jonathan's and the garden beside our house) are grown without using fertilizer or pesticides.  They are also learning to seed their own vegetables so that the costs of maintaining a garden is simply time and work, no money.  

Our prayer is that these men and women will take what they've learned back to their villages.  If these "new" gardening methods are utilized then every family can easily and effectively have a thriving garden to feed themselves with.  Food security in Malawi is a huge problem that leads to starvation and death daily.  Pray for the committee and Dennis as they teach, learn, and work in this technique.