| " I
have a vivid memory of children playing at the drinking
water station when the water arrived. They played joyfully,
splashing water at each other. The women sometimes worked
with babies on their backs, and the smaller kids played
symbolic "work game" to show that they also participated
in the event.
The form of our actions determines their basic orientation.
This is what the symbolic nature of water teaches us: we
must take into consideration the social context to understand
"in what direction water is going to flow", our
thought process must flow upstream to downstream to adjust
our actions to the final beneficiaries, and we must work
in full transparency and offer clarity to everyone. To sum
it up, the operations involved technical and social innovations
and a total mobilisation of the population, in the framework
of a project that had an "entrepreneurial scope. "
(François, hydraulic expert, project manager
for the Beni Project).
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PRESENTATION
OF OUR WATER PROGRAMMES
DRC: supplying
water to a
town of 170 000 inhabitants
Since the end of 1996, the Democratic Republic of Congo is
affected by violences which have probably caused, directly
or indirectly three million victims. The lack of access to
drinking water and sanitation, combined with the fact that
most existing water facilities are out of service, constitutes
a crucial public health problem in the DRC.
SOLIDARITÉS has been operating in the DRC since 2000.
In Beni (North Kivu), we carried out emergency water access
programmes: small classic drinking water structures. The town
requested a certain number of NGOs to rehabilitate an old
water network, which used to supply the most developed section
of the town. SOLIDARITÉS accepted this mission in partnership
with the European Union (EuropeAid) and with the technical
support of Aquassistance (association of volunteers of the
Suez group) by refocusing the project to benefit the entire
poor population in Beni. This town's population has sharply
increased, due to the insecurity prevailing in the surrounding
countryside. This demographic growth has accelerated, particularly
since 1998. Early 2004, a census indicated that Beni's population
had reached a stable level with 170,000 inhabitants.
Previously, Beni inhabitants tapped their water from springs
that run dry during the dry season, and are polluted (actually,
they are often river resurgences). The wells are also contaminated
because they are located near the latrines. As the major springs
are situated on the town's periphery, people living downtown
frequently had to walk 3 to 4 kilometres to reach a water
point... As a result of this situation, in Beni waterborne
diseases (diarrhoeas...) represented the second cause of mortality,
after malaria.
SOLIDARITÉS proposed an innovative system, called
backfiltration, patented by the Aquatrium firm. Moreover,
a crucial element of this programme – from the evaluation
stage and work operations to finalisation – was the
permanent involvement, consultation and participation of Congolese
authorities and concerned populations and communities who
worked on the project, as well as of REGIDESO (a Congolese
paragovernmental decentralised water management company).
Programme to build a new drinking
water supply network in Beni, in partnership with EuropeAid,
for the European Commission, which financed a budget of more
than 2.5 million Euros. Period of October 10, 2003
to October 12,2005. The inauguration took place on October
12, 2005, in the presence of the DRC's Minister of Energy,
REGIDESO's Management in Kinshasa and in Beni, the Vice-Governor
of the Province of North Kivu, the Mayor of Beni, and a SOLIDARITÉS
delegation from Paris.
This programme includes the construction of a new gravity-fed
adduction and distribution network, with two major structures:
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2 river catchments + 3 complementary catchments
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Gravity-fed adduction to the treatment
station, i.e., approximately 10 kilometres of pipes
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A biological backfiltration treatment
station, with a production capacity of 100 m3/h
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Rehabilitation of the main reservoir (1,600
m3)
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50 km of distribution networks throughout
the town with 40 waterways.
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84 so-called "hyper" street
fountains, each one of which is equipped with 10 taps and
is designed to supply 2,000 inhabitants. These "hyper"
street fountains replaced former classical fountains and met
the population's expectations: by installing taps and a larger
capacity reservoir, we managed to reduce considerable waiting
time at traditional peak hours.
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To ensure proper operating and sustainability
of these facilities, a concertation entity was created: it
includes all the governmental partners as well as civil society
– represented by mothers who are the presidents of the
"hyper street fountains" – , and the managers.
Today, SOLIDARITÉS' team in the DRC comprises 22 expatriate
volunteers and around 200 Congolese.
Aquatrium's
biological backfiltration system: how is it innovative
and why was it particularly adapted to this project? |
In a classic filtration system,
water is only filtered once by a thick filter, which
implies heavy sand-washing maintenance operations. With
the backfiltration system used in Beni, water passes
6 times through a small volume of filtering sand. A
surface layer of "good" bacteria destroys
the pathogenic bacteria, thereby rendering river water
drinkable. Maintenance can easily be performed every
month, in a few hours, using a pressurised water jet.
The investment in terms of civil engineering is less
heavy than with a classic biological treatment. And
the system is finally less energy-consuming than a physico-chemical
treatment. |
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