When Girls Reaching Out (GRO) started in 2013, the goal was to take the information we had learned from the Malawian teachers studying at Lakeland University and develop a tangible solution. We wanted to provide closer sources of clean water, promote education, and combat water-borne diseases through improved hygiene and health. In our partnership with Lakeland and the Malawi teachers, including Patrick Tembwe, we decided that every well should be connected with a school. With clean water readily accessible, schools are able to keep more girls in consistent classes, provide student lunches, clean their facilities, and increase their teacher retention. Choosing locations based on the presence of a school allows us to tackle multiple critical issues at once. Like the GRO girls, WASH for Life adopts the same approach to determining where a new well should go.
Our Increasing Reach
For all branches of the borehole program: GRO, WASH, and the Starfish Foundation (Starfish Brothers, Starfish MUHS, St. John’s Starfish), Patrick Tembwe is our man on the ground. His role is absolutely vital to the success of each well, because it is under his expert direction that every borehole site is vetted and constructed. As GRO and WASH gained traction over the years and as we made increasingly widespread connections, it became clear that there were many communities in need. Where we initially started with small villages in need, we have grown our awareness of schools with thousands of learners. Patrick receives communications from all over Malawi requesting aid for clean water, increasing in volume as time goes on. In an ideal world, we would bring a borehole well to every community that needed one; the reality, however, is that each borehole still requires individual funding, a site evaluation, construction, and long-term maintenance. Therefore, we have implemented an application system to help organize schools seeking a borehole well.
The Application Process
Created by Patrick and the GRO/WASH team, the borehole application determines two factors from a broad perspective – the school demographic associated with the location and the status of the current usable water source. The head teacher of the school fills out the application, where they indicate the location, the number of staff members, and the number of learners (students). This gives us an idea of how many wells may be required to serve the community and how many people (learners and families) are in need. The head teacher’s description of the current water source includes the type of supply (pond, lake, river, or old well) and how far away it is. If the source is naturally occurring, we can infer the community is likely sharing that source with wildlife and more prone to diseases; if there is a well that no longer works, we can infer the water table may be accessible. Additionally, the distance from the community to the source tells us roughly how long many female students are likely missing class to retrieve water for their families. The head teacher connects this data by explaining the impact they see of the water source on the efficacy of student learning. For instance, when the application asks “What is the current water situation, including the challenges due to a lack of water?”, one teacher answered, “Learners scramble for water due to congestion. Poor sanitation. Poor time management due to lack of water”. Perspectives like this give us a snapshot of the severity of need and how many people are impacted.
The recent application for Namwanja Primary School from January 2025.
The application takes into account other important viewpoints as well. Along with the head teacher, there are also sections for parents and learners in the community to share their concerns. At least three parents and three students are chosen as representatives to give the application more depth. Parents are asked questions like “Why do you feel a borehole would be beneficial for your children?”, to which they answer, “It will promote effective learning” and “It will reduce conflict in the community”. Students are asked similar questions, including how the lack of water affects their daily lives; learners cite the impacts on their learning as poor sanitation, competition for water, and distance to travel. When considering the benefits of a borehole on their education, students refer to less competition, better hygiene, and more time in the classroom. From three distinct perspectives on the issue, we can see where patterns start to arise and determine which problems may need attention first. Of the applications we receive, we know all are deserving of a borehole – it is just a matter of which community needs a new water source the most urgently.
After the applications are finished by the community, Patrick completes the paperwork with his own assessment of the school. This is an in-person site evaluation where he can confirm the information written in the application, meet with members of the community, and determine if the physical environment can sustain a well. Patrick takes his WASH-mobile personally to each location and says that he considers three things: “enrollment of the school, proximity to the nearest source of water, and the challenges experienced by the learners”. He will speak with teachers and learners to gather more insight, examine the status of the current water source, and get a feeling for the state of the community. The tangible information he gathers through these visits is what we refer to as “vetting” a well site, allowing us to determine their priority for funding. If, for instance, there is a school with 800 students whose only water source is 5 miles away, it may receive funding before a school with 300 students who have a closer source. There are many factors that go into determining priority, but it is first and foremost Patrick’s understanding of the community’s need from being there in person. His assessment on the application indicates whether a community simply needs renovating on a current source or requires one in the first place, as well as how time-sensitive the need is.
Water surveys were conducted in Februrary 2025 for potential borehole placement.
Applications & Community Input
Another significant part of the application asks all three representatives – the head teacher, parents, and learners – how they intend on protecting the longevity of their borehole. Once the borehole is installed, it is up to the community to establish a system of security and maintenance to ensure that their well can supply them with clean, accessible water for as long as possible. Applications often contain responses to this question like, “School will provide security” or, “Learners will take care of the surrounding area”. Teachers and students alike are encouraged to contribute to the care of their well, whether that be in the form of cleaning, being part of the security team, or being trained to perform technical maintenance. Members of the community can also volunteer to be trained in these disciplines; in fact, Patrick’s mission to train more borehole technicians gained significant traction this past year with the addition of a few mothers from the community (see this past blog for more information). When Patrick does his site examinations, he can also determine how able and prepared the community is to take care of their borehole for the foreseeable future and recruit people to be properly trained.
Visiting the Schools
So far in 2025, Patrick has been able to visit all 12 sites from the applications we received for new boreholes. As we start to finish up in northern Malawi, we are turning our focus towards southern regions, including many of the sites he just evaluated. In years past, Patrick has conducted these well site examinations in Malawi during the dry, cool season from May to October. This year, however, preliminary visits to new communities are occurring during the rainy season, when the climate becomes hot and wet between November and April due to continuous heavy rainfall. We already know how much this season affects current water sources, as they are often described on applications; one head teacher wrote, “the water [from current source] becomes more contaminated during rainy seasons”. The impact on travel conditions, daily weather, and the physical environment also significantly changes how Patrick goes about his visits. He describes the perspective experience of the learners: “Being the first time going on site visits during the rainy season, it was fun and full of first hand experiences in cases where the learners were drawing water from an open well, which was full of contaminants. When the water sources are far and it is raining, no one could go into the rain to draw water. Where possible, they could draw water from the iron sheets of their school roofs when it is raining”. These difficult conditions change how Patrick’s evaluation works, but allows him to see what may happen to the environment during more intense weather conditions and how bad the need for clean water becomes when circumstances change.
The Challenge of the Rainy Season
Part of the issue in the rainy season is whether or not Patrick can physically reach the sites; he often drives long hours into rural areas with only one road for access. “In terms of accessibility of the roads, most of them were slippery, but thanks to my 4-wheel drive truck I was able to maneuver through the mud and slippery roads to reach the intended destination. Above all, I did not come across flooded rivers, which could have been a challenge for me to cross over”. The WASH-mobile has provided Patrick with a safer, more reliable mode of transportation during the rainy season, especially when roads are often washed out or dangerous to drive on. His commitment to our shared mission and willingness to make these trips is the key to our ability to actually bring borehole wells to communities in Malawi. Regardless of how far he travels and through what conditions, Patrick shares that every well site visit “gives hope of safe and clean water to learners and communities”.
Patrick Tembwe driving the WASH-mobile up a bumpy hill.
Final Steps Before the Drilling
Now that the locations for our most recent batch of applications have been vetted, a check for the equipment needed to construct the boreholes has been sent out from WASH and GRO. The next step is for a professional to check the water table status at each site, which tells us the best placement for the well, how far we need to drill, and what kind of sustained water access the environment has. As we consider all these forms of water – rivers and lakes, wells and water tables deep in the ground – let’s take it back to something as simple as a rainy day. Think about a rainy day here in the United States. What do you do? Maybe you stay inside, curled up on the couch and wrapped in a cozy blanket, watching TV or playing a video game. When you get thirsty, you simply walk to the faucet – maybe make yourself a cup or tea or take a hot shower. Consider in comparison a rainy day, during the rainy season, in Malawi. Maybe you have to walk 5 miles through the pelting rain, trying to find water that isn’t cloudy with dirt and debris. Or maybe the river you normally draw water from is running too fast to safely approach. If you are stuck inside, what kind of entertainment do you engage in without internet or technology? Between our two countries, we experience something as ubiquitous and normal as a rainy day in very different ways, with very different connotations. Where a little girl in the US may view a rainy day as cozy and comforting, a little girl in Malawi may view a rainy day as dangerous and uncertain. A borehole, however, has the power to change all that – and so do you. Every new borehole is a chance to change lives. Together, we can make a difference!