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Small changes-big impact
Robert V. Lange
Greetings!

Coming back to Tanzania after being away for a while, I have the chance to form brand new impressions.

The most disturbing thing I see is the water the people have to use—so terribly unhealthy, right at the source. The women and children have to deal with this every day. Read below about how our work with water is taking on that challenge.

I've been witnessing, firsthand, what a difference your support makes. It is wonderful to see how even a small change can make a big impact on someone’s life.

A few months ago, we shared the stories of the group of women particularly interested in tailoring who received sewing machines from the Project. We promised to follow up with you on that story. Read below to find out about Adela Sangiya, and how much this has meant to her.
With great appreciation,

Twende!

October 2018
Adela's sewing machine
Graduation day for Adela Sangiya at Cypress Hill
In June we wrote to you about the sewing machines included when we received the Cypress Hill campus. We had invited women with an interest in sewing to take a short review class in tailoring. As their graduation prize, each could take one of the machines home with them.

Adela Sangiya took her sewing machine all the way to her home village of Digodigo in Ngorongoro district, just west of lake Natron and up near the Kenyan border. Mesha Singolyo, Cypress Hlll manager, recently visited Digodigo to see her parents, and met with Adela. She wanted us to learn more about how the sewing machine project was working out.
What Mesha discovered--it's all good
Adela had immediately started banking the money she had been spending previously on machine rental. Once she had $175 saved, her father sold a cow and added about $250 to her fund. Adela had already been renting a shop with another woman, and used the money to stock up on fabrics for tailoring, and shoes to sell.

The people of her community were happy to see her doing so well. She announced that she would provide free tutoring in tailoring to one community member for a year-long period.
Adela stocked up on fabric

Upping the ante

Adela has two goals. First she want to earn and save enough money to expand her clothing production business. Once she has $800 saved she plans to get into the school uniform production and sales business in a serious way.   

And eventually, in addition to thriving as a business woman and tailor, Adela aims to become a fabric buyer and distributor.

She is very happy and thankful. And so are we. The Maasai Stoves & Solar Project appreciates the opportunity to work with Adela and people like her, who are ready to maximize the impact of these opportunities. Read the beginning of Adela's story here.
Water Pilot Project Report Card
Bringing home clean water from the pilot systems
The International Collaborative introduced water sanitation systems based on tried-and-true chlorination technology, adapted to the local conditions.

We take on a huge responsibility when we tell families that the water is safe. After all, we are telling a mother she doesn’t need to do anything to the water before her children drink it. In the past she may have boiled some, which had helped.

Repeated testing

The ponds where we have introduced chlorination have well organized water-user collectives. The manager for each adds aluminum sulfate to the first large tank of the system to work overnight. This gets the silt and organic matter to settle by morning.

That morning, the manager then adds the calcium hypochlorite to the clear water in the second tank and it is ready for the women to collect the same day. We’ve tested this regularly over the first year of our four installed systems. This reveals the accurate amounts of these chemicals needed for producing safe and clear water.
Kisioki and I testing samples and recording data
Kisioki and I set out on my first day back in Tanzania to visit the four water systems. We inspected each of the small tanks that hold the concentrated chemical solutions used by the local system manager. We also collected tank water samples for testing with the IDEXX colisure method.

At one installation we replaced one of the chemical holding tanks to make treatment more convenient for the manager. And we reviewed the dosages with the managers of all four systems. Read more here.
Great results
All is well, and we now know the technology is practical.

We have also confirmed that this approach to ridding the people of water-borne disease is a real success!

The samples are very good, and all the managers are well equipped to maintain the water quality.

With this good news, scaling up is now on the agenda.
Next steps with water Clean water, right on tap
With clean water so essential for health, we believe that an investment in this kind of “preventative medicine” would be a great use of Tanzanian government health funds.

Our goal is to work with the District government and encourage them to work with us to expand the use of this effective and inexpensive technology for health.

And of course, we still need you and donors like you to help support the building of more systems to bring clean water to more people in need.

But in the meantime, bacteria monitoring never stops. Twende!
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