About 1.5 million people are dying due to polluted water every year. This lead to the United Nations recognizing the access to clean water as a human right in the year 2010. But especially in rural areas in Africa, like the region around Lake Tanganyika, the conditions to secure this right are really bad.
The inhabitants of countries bordering Lake Tanganyika are suffering from droughts, hunger and polluted drinking water. This is mainly caused by climate change, massive population growth and bad hygienic conditions. In the village of Gitaza, which is located at the Burundian shore of Lake Tanganyika, no operating infrastructure to provide drinking water can be found. The inhabitants, especially small children, are suffering from the lack of clean drinking water and illnesses like diarrhea caused by polluted lake water.
Safeguard clean drinking water
We want to provide clean drinking water to 800 households as well as to 2,800 pupils and a health care center. This will be realized by water treatment plants and an effective infrastructure in the community of Gitaza. Educational measures accompany the infrastructural steps and will help the people to decrease pollution in the lake. The shores shall be cleaned up and the sewage can be treated e.g. with Green Filters. Trees raised in domestic nurseries and planted around the lake will help the shores being protected from erosion.
Create alternative income sources
Every tenth inhabitant of Tanganyika basin depends on the lake. 100,000 fishermen are subsisting on fishing. But overfishing leads to a dramatic decrease in the amount of fish catched. In Burundi, the return of fish was reduced by 25 per cent. We provide new income sources to fishermen’s families, especially to the women, and therefore reduce overfishing in the lake.