270 x 1000 litre tanks (August-October, 2022)
In late July 2022, following a project which was nearly completely corrupted in the DRC, a spontaneous project was birthed on the Rwandan side of Lake Kivu.
Lake Kivu is a very long, very large lake which borders Rwanda, the eastern DRC and Burundi. It’s slightly saline and has an immense methane pocket. In certain areas such as Bukavu, raw sewage is dumped into the lake. People still drink from this lake as obtaining drinking water is often difficult and sometimes very dangerous (sudden winds and waves which overturn dugout canoes).
Once again, God’s grace was evident as our last choice for a supplier turned out to be the best person we could ever have asked for!
With tanks sold to us at a very honest price, his knowledge of the lake region, and contacts to help us get started as well as consistent help throughout the project, Charles Rutabayiru of ProWater Rwanda was nothing less than a Godsend.
During my three months in Rwanda (based out of Kigali, 4 hours away from the lake), our project was prepared. 150 tanks which had been planned for Idjwi in the DRC were readied for their new homes which we soon realized would be, Mushungo island and Kirehe Island as well as 5 villages which were all drinking from lake Kivu.
As we had planned for a much bigger project for the DRC, all the finances for tanks were directed to this new project and we were able to give 1 tank per two households on each of the islands (Mushungo and Kirehe) and 1 tank per 50 people in the villages drinking from the lake, for a total of 270,000 liters of rainwater catching capacity!
At the writing of this blurb we are still awaiting follow-up pictures from the field, but are confident that all is going well, as Rwanda is not your typical African country…things are actually run well and honesty is demanded from the head down.
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