Clean Water for Nenyuga Clinic

Nenyunga Clinic is located in a rural village – the furthest and most remote of Sanyati Hospital’s six outlying rural clinics. Nenyunga Clinic is staffed by two nurses, three nurses’ aides, a government environmental officer, and a general hand. It is the only medical clinic in the vicinity, serving 3,000 – 5,000 people living in the surrounding villages. The nearest doctor is more than 80 miles away. There is no electricity; cellphone service is almost always unavailable.

This 12-bed clinic currently has only four beds with mattresses, and receives no support from government or mission sources. Their only medications are carried in each month in a box, when the nurse makes a 200-mile round trip to Sanyati Hospital, hoping to bring back whatever medications and supplies the hospital has been able to source. In these days of economic disaster and severe shortage of everything – particularly medications – all too often that is a wasted trip.

The only available water – for the nurses and clinic staff, for the patients, and for all the villagers who live within Nenyunga’s catchment area – is from hand-dug shallow “wells” at the nearby river, whose water is polluted with animal waste, fertilizer and other chemical run-off, and the Belharzia parasite – a microscopic parasite absorbed through ingestion or through the skin, almost always resulting in slow and painful death.

JourneyPartners has recently learned of a water-purification system that can provide the answer to Nenyunga’s water challenges. It weighs less than 25 pounds, and can be carried in a suitcase or a backpack. It costs less than $4,000 installed, less than one-third the cost of a traditional deep-water borehole. It is completely reusable, and can be assembled and operational in three days. It can produce up to 55 gallons of water per minute – enough to provide safe drinking water for up to 10,000 villagers per day. It runs on a 12-volt car battery and table salt.

JourneyPartners will be taking our first pilot system to Nenyunga in the summer of 2009, to train the staff of Nenyunga clinic in installation, operation and maintenance of this system. It is our hope to take several more, and provide clean water for each of Sanyati Hospital’s six rural clinics, as well as Chambuta High School, the village of Masembura, township churches, and eventually, dozens of other communities throughout Zimbabwe, and Brazil, and wherever we can. We hope you’ll join us in this ambitious and worthy challenge project – with your prayers, with your encouragement, and with your gifts. For more information, visit our website: www.journeypartners.net, or contact JourneyPartners at 919.494.2033 or journeypartners@earthlink.net.