In December 2012 an internal workshop and exchange was held by Inter Aide between Program managers from Ethiopia, Sierra Leone and Malawi. It was the opportunity to learn and exchange from each other on methods and tools related to ”maintenance programs” and especially on the maintenance of hand pumps.
The 1st week was spent in Ethiopia with Yembeh, who came from Sierra Leone to explain to his Ethiopian colleagues the working principles of India Mark pumps. Indeed, the context where Inter Aide is working in Ethiopia allows the construction of gravity fed networks, whereas in Sierra Leone, the team is constructing and equipping hand dug wells. However, in the lowlands of Ethiopia, hand pumps are more common and the team wanted to get more experience on it in order to integrate such systems into a maintenance approach.
Yembeh (right) explaining India Mark pumps to his colleagues from Ethiopia
In the meantime, Yembeh had the opportunity to learn more about gravity schemes thanks to Asrat, WASH coordinator in Ethiopia.
Then the 2nd week Yembeh ; Akalu – WaSH program manager from Ethiopia ; Gedewon – WaSH Coordinator of our partner RCBDI, has been introduced to the networks of Area Mechanics and spare parts retailers in Malawi by BASEDA + TIMMS represented by its coordinator Teddy, and Laurent, Inter Aide’s Program manager. It was the opportunity for them to discover a large hand pump maintenance scale project covering a lot of communities.
In the meantime, visiting the project in Phalombe, the Ethiopian team provided also some advises for rehabilitation of gravity schemes.
The following link summarizes the exchange done during this workshop
www.interaide.org/pratiques/content/summary-exchanges-between-inter-aides-program-managers-ethiopia-malawi-and-sierra-leone