
The Why
The Problem
Short Term Solution
Permanent Solution
Water resilience is critical for any city in the world, particularly the city of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Bulawayo is landlocked and relies on minimal summer rains to sustain water needs for the communities. With the advent of Global warming, exponential population growth and the diminishing economy; water, especially clean water has become an uphill challenge for the city of Bulawayo. The year 2020, saw the introduction of load shedding; water supplies are shut down for days on end.
The residents are forced to store water in buckets for as many days. The problem is that on the day the water is made available to the residents, it comes out of the faucet dirty and smelling very badly with all kinds of sediments from the pipelines that have not been in use for multiple days. This has resulted in a very deadly water crisis that killed 13 people in June, 2020 and thousands hospitalized.
The contaminated water has propelled the transmission of diseases such as Typhoid, Dysentery and Diarrhea to the community of Luveve. I started a GoFundMe campaign to help drill a few boreholes/ water wells to provide an immediate but not sustainable solution. The water wells will provide clean drinking water sources for about 5 years to 10 years.
The only problem with water wells in Luveve is that the residents will have to walk an average of a mile every time they need water. So, the long term solution to the water crisis of Luveve would be building a water purification plant that will augment ground water, rivers, dams and waste water to create a resilient water system that ensures that all water sources are tapped into without depleting a particular source.