Blog - SMART Centre Group

WASH Debate on November 9th

IRC regularly organises ‘WASH Debates’ as an event to provide an informal platform for Dutch organisations and professionals working in the international water sector to connect and to discuss the latest developments and trends in the sector.

The next WASH Debate will take place on November 9th and will focus on ‘Leveraging household investments: Experiences in scaling market-based approaches in water and sanitation’.

The upcoming WASH Debate will look at the role of Market-Based solutions in increasing the coverage with Sanitation and why this is less accepted in relation to water-supply.

As part of the event, the recent assessment of the SMART Approach will be discussed.

More info is available on the website of IRC.

The details of the event are:

Date: Wednesday 9 November
Time: 17:00-18:30 CET, followed by drinks
Location: Dudok, The Hague
Format: In-person event with possibility to follow online*

Launching the ‘2 with 8’ initiative

Safe drinking Water

At the Stockholm Water Week a small group including dr. John Cherry, recipient of the 2020 Stockholm prize, and the SMART Centre Group proposed an idea for safe drinking with the title Bold idea ‘2 with 8’.

2 billion people safe drinking water at point of use with a grant of $8 billion.

This seems possible with actions like

Wide scale awareness creation.
Supply chains of good quality water filters.
Payment systems and support for poorest.

Interested? Check the pamphlet here.

SMART Centre Group at Stockholm World Water Week 2022

The SMART Centre Group is present at the Stockholm World Water Week, which takes place from 23 August – 1 September. The first few days were online and from Sunday 28 August – Thursday 1 September there are on-site session in Stockholm.

One of the highlights so far was the keynote by Dr. John Cherry on ‘solving rural water poverty’ during which he strongly argued to include Self-supply as one of the models to reach the rural populations. More information.

This year we do not have a physical booth, which means we are flexible to meet with you.

Feel free to reach out to us through info@smartcentregroup.com or +31642559870 (Henk) if you want to meet up.

New video on EMAS drilling

During the recent training in Kenya, jointly organised by EMAS International and the SMART Centre Group EMAS drilling was introduced at the Aqua Clara Centre.

EMAS drilling is a low-cost drilling method, capable of drilling wells of up to 80 meters in relatively soft soils.

A team from the WOT in Enschede was present and develop a video tutorial of the EMAS Drilling Technology. The video is now available on the Youtube-channel of the WOT and has already attracted over 160.000 views!

Feedback from the training course @ Aqua Clara, Kenya

The SMART Centre Group and EMAS, together with Aqua Clara Kenya, recently organised a training on Self-supply technologies, at the Aqua Clara Centre in Kisii, Kenya.

A diverse group of participants from Kenya, Cameroon and Ethiopia gathered for two weeks. During the course the participants were introduced to various EMAS technologies and SMARTechs, including the drilling, hand pumps and solar pumps.

A brief training report can be accessed here.

Documentary on the SMART Centre in Malawi

The CCAP SMART Centre in Malawi was recently visited by Laurène and Valentin, a French couple and travelling through Africa in our 4×4 van ‘Uyo’. As part of their trip they visit interesting local initiatives and share their experiences through their blog.

At the SMART Centre they visited a few days and worked with Alex, one of the trained drillers. Laurène and Valentin made a very nice movie giving a good impression of the work of the SMART Centre and the entrepreneurs.

Check out their website here: https://uyospassengers.fr/en/focus-association-low-tech-smart-centre-malawi-in-mzuzu/.

World Water Day 2022

The theme of this year’s World Water Day (March 22) is ‘Groundwater – Making the invisible visible’. Also the World Water Forum started in Dakar.

As SMART Centres we have prepared an overview with ‘Practical ideas to reach SDG6.1 and water related SDGs in rural Africa’. Download ther overview here.

Enjoy the reading and the World Water Day!

Training course in Kenya in low cost water technologies for Self-supply /households

Recently a Worldbank blog mentioned the study “The rising tide” indicating that women and girls in Sub Saharan Africa spend 40 billion hours per year on collecting water (Blog Worldbank).

One option to reduce time to collect water is having a well at or near the household. There are technologies that make affordable wells for small communities and households, for example EMAS technologies. In Bolivia over 70.000 household wells of 20 to 50 m deep were drilled commercially at a cost of $200 to $500 (including pump). Other low cost well drilling options are SHIPO (rotary) jetting, and Mzuzu drill and pumps include, EMAS, Rope and small solar pumps, Rainwater storage options include the EMAS underground and wire brick cement tanks. Options for groundwater recharge at the household level include the Tube recharge. For water treatment there is a range of household water filters and Satopans for sanitation.

A hands on training course on these low cost water technologies was held in Malawi in 2021
see also website SMART Centre Group. A similar course will be hosted in Kenya by Aqua Clara in Kenya (https://www.aquaclarakenya.com/) with support and trainers from the EMAS foundation and the SMART Centre Group. Download the course flyer here.

The course will take place from Tuesday 3 May to Saturday 14 May and is targetting Well drillers, welders, masons, technicians, entrepreneurs, others interested in these technologies. The fee for this course is 400 US$ which includes food during the training. Cost of travel and lodging is not included.

Those with interest can send a mail to info@smartcentregroup.com.

Feel free to forward this announcement to anyone who might be interested to join this course.

Group picture after the training in Malawi

EMAS technologies further reduce cost of self-supply

The month of September has been a busy month at the SMART Centre in Malawi. For a period of three weeks Henk Holtslag (on behalf of the SMART Centre Group) and Wolfgang Buchner (on behalf of EMAS International) visited to facilitate the Short Course on ‘WASH Technologies for Self-supply’.
EMAS, the CCAP SMART Centre and the SMART Centre Group organised a training in water technologies that are affordable for families and so fit for Self-supply and a group of 15 technicians from Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania and Kenya joined for the trainings.

Short courses on Self-supply Technologies @ CCAP SMART Centre, Malawi

The recently published book “Self-Supply” indicates that over 1 billion people world-wide have Self-supply so water supply for which they paid themselves. Some 80% of all self-supply systems are wells. It is clear that scaling self-supply has a huge potential to help in reaching Sustainable Development Goals for water, poverty and food.

The CCAP SMART Centre Malawi, in collaboration with EMAS International and the SMART Centre Group, is organizing two short courses on low-cost Water and Sanitation Technologies with a focus on Self-supply.

Course 1 will take place from Monday 6 – 17 September 2021 and will focus on Hands on training in self-supply technologies targetting Well drillers, welders, masons, technicians, entrepreneurs, others interested in practical technologies.

Course 2 will take place from Tuesday 21 – 24 September 2021 and will focus on Demonstration of self-supply technologies and ideas to scale up targetting WASH program officers of NGOs and governments and those with general interest in approaches that can help to reach SDG6 and water related goals like poverty, food security and employment.

For more info and registration check the flyer and contact us through jamemhango@gmail.com or henkholtslag49@gmail.com.

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