9 December 2024
Ambassador and Mayor inaugurate drinking water facility!
Immediately after the visit to the vocational school, the German Ambassador and the Bugesera Cistrict Mayor inaugurated a drinking water system at Cyirabo Primary School.
Cyirabo Primary School only had a 25,000-litre storage capacity for rainwater. This was not enough for the approximately 900 pupils. The head teacher approached us with the request to build a drinking water system. We successfully applied for funding from the German Embassy in Kigali, which has a small projects fund. A local construction company began work on the 100,000-litre underground rainwater cistern with a filter system in August 2024.
The water comes from the school's roofs. It is first passes through a mechanical filter and a sand filter, is chlorinated and then enters the cistern. A solar-powered pump is used to pump the water from the cistern to an elevated "gravity" water tank. From there, it runs through the filter system into both the tank for the school and a tank for a public water point. A hand pump can be used to take water directly from the cistern, e.g. for cooking or cleaning.
The filter system consists of mechanical filters and a UV filter, which is also solar-powered. The filtered drinking water for students and school staff is dispensed at a tap.
The drinking water facility was inaugurated with a big ceremony. The German Ambassador to Rwanda, Heike Uta Dettmann, and the Mayor of Bugesera District, Richard Mutabazi, gave speeches. The programme also included a traditional dance performance.
Ambassador and Mayor have also inaugurated the public tap from which the 400 households of the village of Twabagarama will receive clean drinking water. The establishment of a water committee to organise the management of the tap is in preparation.
