After the success of our borehole project in the Sidinda Conservancy we were asked by another community near the Gwayi River outside of Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe for help with providing water for them. Village Head Albert Moyo of Hankano village handwrote a letter which found its way to the board of the AWCC.
The borehole in the village was run by an old diesel pump which frequently broke down and used expensive fuel. This pump was essential because it provided water not only to the village but the school and a waterhole for wildlife as well.
Hakano village is located in a CAMPFIRE area and Nyamazana Safaris is the local hunting operator. The Communal Areas Management Program for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) is a community-based natural resource management program in Zimbabwe. It uses wildlife as a renewable natural resource from which communities can generate revenue from sustainable hunting to fund development. While there are many visitors to Hwange National Park there are no tourists coming to Hankano. Funding for the village comes from the revenue brought in from the regulated hunting of the wildlife that belongs to them.
Together a plan was hatched by the AWCC and Nyamazana Safaris to restore the old communal borehole to operating condition. We knew that we had to get the water flowing again and soon. The AWCC provided the funding and Nyamazana brought in the equipment from Bulawayo. In short order the old pump was removed and a new solar powered one was installed. Gone was the dirty diesel pump and in its place a new environmentally friendly one. Along with the game scouts and professional hunters employed by Nyamazana the village worked to get the whole operation running again. Water was flowing back to the school for the children and being pumped into the pan used by wildlife.
Another successful demonstration of how community based conservation works!
With the pump broken people had to haul water in buckets back to the village.
The old diesel pump belching smoke. It actually stopped working by the end of the clip.
Everyone chipped in to install the solar panels and get the pump working.
Students back in school now that the water is restored.
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