In the midst of the worst Cholera outbreak in Zambian history, Shanta Foundation and FLC’s Village Aid Project will launch an ambitious, three-year, water and sanitation infrastructure project that should reduce the risk of cholera in the Siyowi region outside Mazabuka. Responding to the request of village development leaders, VAP and Shanta will travel to Zambia in May to begin an immense water project that could include up to 12 boreholes and a multi-village residential distribution system. In addition, plans are being made to introduce a latrine design that will limit the villagers’ exposure to human feces caused by open defecation and seasonal flooding.
Fort Lewis College engineering professor, Dr. Matthew Klema, and a group of student leaders will spearhead the project. The team will primarily consist of engineering students and faculty. In describing the trip, Dr. Klema was quick to distinguish the VAP/Shanta approach from other charitable efforts. He noted, “We hope not to address this issue ourselves but help the communities in Zambia develop the infrastructure to address and mitigate these issues through community collaboration. In other words, we hope to provide the push and momentum for the communities to start developing sustainable infrastructure and self-managed [water and sanitation] services that will fix these problems and give them the tools and knowledge for them to control their own mitigation management.”
Sustainable, community-led development requires a transfer of skills (the how-to) and a rigid observance of local control. The goal should never be to solve the problem; rather, the goal is always to equip local people to choose the problem they want to address and then equip them to do it themselves, ensuring that they will then have the skills to maintain the project and address future problems that we can’t predict today. Shanta is incredibly grateful for VAP and their commitment to our “community-led” approach to development. While the cholera epidemic is urgent, there will be a different crisis, of some kind, in the future. It is our objective to assist local people in addressing today’s crisis while also preparing them to handle whatever crisis comes next.
