The water effect; Life in all its fullness!BY JUSTICE MANGANDAThe author is the Communications Ocer for World Vision Malawi-WASH

Leonardo da Vinci, one of the great men of the Renaissance described water as the driving force of all nature. It is a very well-known fact that without potable water life would be impossible and this is why today we say that water is life!

World Vision Malawi (WVM) is part of World Vision International, an international partnership of Christians, whose mission is to follow our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in working with the poor and oppressed to promote human transformation, seek justice and bear witness to the good news of the Kingdom of the living God.

In its quest to provide life in all its fullness, WVM instituted a long term Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programme in line with governments water and sanitation policies.

WASHs main goal is to significantly improve childrens well-being by enabling families and communities to achieve sustainable access to adequate potable water, improved sanitation facilities and good hygiene practices.

According to the most recent report by the World Health Organisation about 50 percent of Malawians live below the national poverty line, while 17 percent lack access to water and about 92 percent do not have access to proper sanitation facilities. This is a serious situation that calls the attention of everyone in the country if our dream to provide life in all its fullness is to be realised.

Malawi will join the global community on March 22 to

commemorate this years World Water Day whose theme is Water and Sustainable Development. With water being the driving force of all nature, World Vision Malawi has been making sustained efforts to have increased access to sustainable and safe water supply for the poor, vulnerable communities and children.

The majority of World Visions activities focus on the well-being of children as they are vulnerable to many situations and above all form the core future of generations to come.

With this passion as the driving factor, by 2017 World Vision Malawi intends to reach out to all its 31 Area Programmes (APs) which are in 28 of the countrys 31 districts with its WASH programme. This is backed by an investment plan to spend up to US$47 million.

Interaction with people who are benefitting from World Vision WASH programmes is quiet an amazing and humbling experience. One learns how lives of women and children have been transformed as a result of such investments.

Eight year old Elina Mpezenji and her brother Yamikani aged 10 of Sikedi village T/A Chitekwere within the catchment area of Nkhoma ADP in Lilongwe are healthy children today because they are able to access safe and potable water from a borehole provided to them by World Vision Malawi.

Ever since I was born my brother and I have been suffering from diarrhoea each and every month up to the point that sometimes we could not go to school. My performance was always poor for I could be absent from school for 3 weeks per term suffering from diarrhoea. I am thankful today because I can now enjoy this very clean water, narrates Elina while smiling.

Road access to Sikedi Village is a challenge and one can only wonder today what it took for the drilling machine to reach the place.

In an interview, the childrens father explained that the effort they took in order to save their lives centred on determination, team spirit and knowledge of how to address their basic need.

We covered up the ridge with a temporal bridge for the drilling machine to pass through; you cannot believe this, but it took us 5 days to finish; indeed we did this for

our children to have access to clean and safe water, said John Mpezenji.The village is surrounded by hills and has a high number of women and school going children apart from Yamikani and Elina. The children most of the times are the ones to draw water for household chores. Before this borehole we were drinking water from a spring where pigs, dogs and goats also depended on as their source of water. My mother could wake us up very early in the morning to fetch water before we go to school while she prepared us porridge.

Because of the little water fetched every morning, we could not even bother to take a bath but rather rush to school. Today we are able to fetch water at our own convenient time and we always take a bath before

going to school. My sister and I no longer suffer from diarrhoea like we used to and I am thankful to God through World Vision for the borehole provided to us, recalls Yamikani.

It is stories like these that encourage and motivate World Vision staff and partners across the world to want to do more in serving the people out there.

Such stories should challenge everyone to do something.

As part of its ongoing efforts, World Vision Malawi will on 1st April 2015 officially commission the Chikwina-Mpamba Gravity Fed Piped Water Supply System which is in the area of T/A Nyaluwanga in Nkhatabay district.

This is one of the largest WASH projects that World Vision Malawi started implementing in 2004 and the first phase of the project has now successfully completed. World Vision Malawi invested money and resources worth over US$5 million towards the completion of this project alone.

This new water facility has 5 water storage tanks with a total capacity of 325 cubic meters and 210 water taps reaching out to a population of approximately 25,000 people including all schools along the Chikwina-Mpamba road.

There are many other areas out there, very difficult to reach like Sikedi Village, still struggling with no access to

safe water. There are also numerous young boys and girls like Yamikani and Elina who cannot go to school properly because they are in various ways affected by diseases that come as a result of drinking and using unsafe water.

This reveals that Malawis task is great, hence the need for concerted efforts to change the future for the betterment of our children.

As we commemorate the World Water Day this year, let us remember that only healthy people can contribute effectively to the development of our nation. This is our call, not only as World Vision but all people that live and love people. Water is life and being the driving force of all nature, together we can contribute to the well-being of our children by providing potable water and change the future from Good to Great!

Even schools have fresh tap water.

The terraine to Sikedi village.

Yamikani and Elina, all smiles.

Intake Weir on Manyenyezi Stream, Chikwina-Mpamba.

Tank 3 at the Chikwina-Mpamba Gravity Fed Water Supply System.

World Vision sta sharing ideas at the constuction site.