CED has been helping communities construct ferrocement water storage tanks for over 25 years. Building on this long-term experience CED started a new initiative in 2020 aimed at training local workers who would build tanks for marginalised people. The goal is a global church to national church ongoing funding stream that will see cement tanks improving people’s lives in more and more villages. You can read more about this in our tap twinning web pages.
With this in mind, CED recently helped to organise a rainwater harvesting conference in Tanzania. Tank building experts from six different dioceses across western Tanzania travelled to Ngara, where they spent three days taking part in a series of seminars, discussions and hands-on tank construction.
Tank construction at the Ngara conference
Around 30 people came to the conference. The main objective was to share experiences of how each team has been building tanks in their respective districts, discussing both the challenges they have faced and the strengths they have developed along the way. Some of the more experienced teams have already built over 100 tanks, while others have only recently joined the programme.
A major focus of the time together was looking at how CED can help our partners to expand the programme and enable these teams of craftsmen and women to begin building tanks on a commercial level, creating a more sustainable model that is less reliant on external funding.
Some of the participants at the conference at Ngara
CED’s student engineer Joel Viney took part in the conference. He told us: “It was a real privilege to spend time together as we shared meals, worshipped and prayed each morning, learned how to stay safe during construction and encouraged one another in our shared mission. It was a hugely enjoyable and encouraging three days and a reminder of how much can be achieved when we work together.”
We look forward to seeing how the programme continues to grow and ask you to join us in praying that it brings clean, safe water to even more communities through God’s grace and might.