Makwelani
Project Description
Makwelani Village is located in Group Village Head Malunga in Traditional Authority Kuntaja in Blantyre District, Malawi. At the Makwelani school, there are 585 total learners (85 nursery students and 500 primary students) who come from the school’s catchment area of 2 nearby villages. There are ~2,100 total people in the catchment area.
Learners under 6 years old go to a Community Development Center (CDC) for nursery classes, which is only a 5 minute walk away from the primary school. The primary school offers levels/grades 1-6 and does not offer levels 7-8. The primary school is also located 3 km away from a local medical center. The Makwelani village schools are lacking in English books and are looking for opportunities to learn outside of the classroom.
The primary school has a total of 5 latrines. This is a ratio of 100:1 students to latrines, which is double the standard of 50:1. The CDC has 1 latrine for a student to latrine ratio of 85:1. These latrines are easily susceptible to structural damage from rain and thus are seasonally unreliable.
Makwelani Village School’s main water source is 2 boreholes. There is also a third non-functional borehole at the school. However, during the dry season, it is difficult to pump water from the functional boreholes. There are also broken bridges at the school that make it challenging to cross the nearby river, especially during the wet season.
The school and surrounding community use solid fuel burning as their primary means of cooking. They cut down trees for firewood and the kids bring sticks from home.
In August 2024, the Tufts University Chapter conducted an Assessment Trip to Malawi to understand the needs of two new communities: the Makwelani Village, and the Naisi Primary School. With our partnership with Joshua Orphan and Community Care (JOCC) and Freshwater Project International (FPI), we went into the communities, conducted interviews, and met with CBOs and chiefs. We assessed contractors and supply stores, as well as met with other EWB chapters in the area to take a look first hand what a sanitation and water distribution project could look like.
Web Tech Group
We are working on a website that displays data of the water level in the water tank in the primary school. This data will be acquired from the ultrasonic sensor located inside the water tank. The data will be stored in our database and sent to the frontend of the website to be displayed. Ultimately, we will also analyze the data to display and predict water trends that the JOCC and other tech groups can use.
Ava Reijmers and Kayla Lee
AutoCAD Group
We are creating CAD models of Kasupe Primary School to scale using AutoCAD and Autodesk 3ds Max. We are also working with the other tech groups to model their designs that will be presented to stakeholders.
Rachel Leung & Matt Bastardi
Maps Group
MAPS is working on analyzing and cleaning data collected from our chapter’s most recent implementation and assessment trip to Solobala, Malawi. Tech Leads Katie & Hannah are teaching members how to use ArcGIS and Survey123 to organize and visualize the survey data. MAPs plans to organize the data by building categories, separating households, schools, and implemented infrastructure. MAPS’s second priority is to upload piping data to ArcGIS.
Hannah Rajalingam and Katrina Eagan
SHODHY
This semester, the Shower Design and Hygiene (SHODHY) group is working on designing a shower and changing room for Kasupe Primary School. This year, Kasupe Primary School is expanding to include 8th grade, meaning there will be a higher number of girls of menstruation age. In Makwelani, there is limited access to period products, so these girls usually use a cloth from home for the whole school day, which can impact their learning. After having a conversation with the headteacher and the girls at the school, we are prioritizing building a shower to make it easier for the girls to clean themselves during the school day and to continue to focus on learning.
Jaci Baker-Green and Rosie Lavin
Sensor
The sensor group is working on an ultrasonic sensor that will be used to measure the water level of a 10000 L tank. The measurements of the tank will be stored in an SD card. Each data file containing the water level measurements will be collected sporadically and sent to the WEB tech group via a SIM card connected to the SD card.
Harrison Tun and Aidan Hoidal-Bui
Rain Water Harvesting
This semester we are working on designing a rainwater catchment system for the Kasupe Primary School. We are currently designing three alternative gutter and tank systems and will solidify on one by the end of December 2025. We are focusing on gutter to tank piping and on the filtration system to provide clean water.
Shivani Panchal and William O’Connor
STaHP – School Taps and Handwashing Station
This semester, our tech group is focusing on developing three alternative designs for a piping system and handwashing stations. We will be researching, designing, and prototyping the system, taps, and soakaway pit for handwashing stations to implement at Kasupe Primary School in Makwelani, Malawi. We will be using a software application called EPANET to model the water distribution system from RAWH’s rainwater harvesting tank to our handwashing stations.
Mya Antonetti and Lucie Rynne