Stage 2: constructing tanks and pipework. Photo: M'Munge Kabwe Jean.
Clean water a step closer
A Quaker-backed project has come closer to providing clean water to a community in Abeka
A project backed by the Quaker Congo Partnership UK has come a step closer to bringing clean water to the community hospital and village of Abeka in South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Seven months ago work started on tapping the springs and constructing tanks and pipework. Water is now coming through the main pipe near the hospital, Quaker Congo Partnership told the Friend. The next stage of the project will involve erecting standpipes, showers and basins to enable water distribution through both the hospital and the village.
Abeka women currently collect water from nearby Lake Tanganyika or from streams, both of which are polluted. Water for the hospital is collected from the corrugated roofs of the buildings. Each month the hospital treats more than a hundred cases of malaria, about eighty cases of typhoid and sees some sixty people with severe diarrhoea.
News of the completion of the second stage ‘has really given hope to the village’, Quaker Congo Partnership UK’s Margaret Gregory said.
