First I would like to take this oppurtunity to apologize for the missing blog entries. We have been working hard day and night to pull this project off and therefore this blog got put aside.
In this attempt I will try to summarize some of the important events that took place between
the last blog entry and today. With this I hope my fellow coworkers will help me and fill in with more pics.
I am right now sitting at home in Sweden in my apartment, gradually digesting the impressions from the long journey home. Eventually I will realize what really happened down in Uganda. Right now I feel empty but relieved over the fact that we came home safe and sound.
The trip back home started on Tuesday at 12.00 am. Now is is Thursday and I opened the door to my apartment at 12.00 am. This mean our trip took 48h, 12h more than planned. The reason for this was "simply" a delay in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, that finally got us 12h off schedule. Im glad we did not stay the night in Addis.
The topic of this entry will mainly be about Bubwaya Waterworks, which Insert Africa has built up under a 3 year long period, were we now installed a sanitation system consisting of UV
disinfection and automatic chlorine injection. In parallel to our engineering commitment to the waterworks we also held educational worksshops to educate 60 youths living in the Manafwa region. The workshops aimed to explain why this waterwork was built, what it consists of and why. We also discussed the design and the strategic placement of sub components to the waterworks and also what can be done in the future. With this basic knowledge the youths now were ready to compete in our Venture cup inspired business creation
competition which aimed to engage youths in entrepreneurship and to support the sustainability of Bubwaya waterworks.
These workshops were above all my expectations. We got many tricky questions on a high level and we got all the reward we needed in terms of engaged students. Some of them had studied water purification before, probably more than we have don
e, and they showed great excitement when the UV-system was explained. This was something new!
The actual installation of the water disinfection system was as mentioned above done in paralell with the work shops and we had a really tight schedule to accomplish this in time. To our help we had two engaged local engineers, Francis and Sam, that showed us commitment never to be seen elsewhere. They have since the start taken care of the Waterworks and worked without pay just to contribute to their society. Bubwaya water works would never run today without them!
Me and Jens (red shirt) running a work shop together with Erman (camera man). A slow sandfilter in the background.
Erman, Francis (right) and David (left) building a support structure to mount the UV system on. Above is the old water pipe coming from the pump in the other room.
Lars-Anders is thinking hard while the rest of the team is mounting the Trojan UV max systems on to the newly built support structure.
Almost done. Water is running through the UV system. The chlorine pump is ticking on the new 500l tank. 8 solar panels were needed to maintain a good power supply to the system while it was cloudy.
The Golden tap! Just outside the waterworks house we mounted a tap for water testing. This tap now probably holds the cleanest running water in Manafwa.
Thank you all that made this possible!
- For the good discount on the Trojan UV system we thank Water processing Sweden and Per Samuelsson.
- For the good discount on the chlorine pump we thank Prominent and Peter Christensson
- For the good discount on the connections we thank Peter Olsson on Ahlsell.
- For great finance and moral support we thank Lars Gunnarsson. Your help was priceless!
- For great support in this project we also thank Gilbert Svensson and Stephan Mangold on Chalmers Industriteknik CIT.
You all made this possible!
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