ACHIEVEMENTS
While many local NGO’s are struggling at fulfilling their role of complementing government in helping helpless communities, MATAMA (NGO) has managed to do so and in the process win Donor confidence as evidenced by the several new projects which we got in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
We were able to help our implementation partners, City Assembly, in training 26 Health Surveillance Assistants in Water and Sanitation Components in September 2006. The sweetest part of this is that though there are many NGO’s in Lilongwe, non of them had ever bothered to train the HSA’s until we did it and when we realized that they still lacked a lot of knowledge in many aspects, we included a training for them again in the new Water Aid Project. We are optimistic that by the end of this training Lilongwe will benefit a lot because these HSA’s will not work in areas served by MATAMA only but the whole City.
Thirdly we have been able to help rural communities (Waliranji & Chimundi) access safe drinking water through provision of shallow wells (2) in Waliranji and (6) in Chimundi. For most of the villages it was heart breaking to notice that they had never had a protected shallow well in their life. The type of wells they got their water from was unprotected and very unsafe as you can see in accompanying pictures. On top of this we have managed to change their mindsets to look at the technology they have been trained in (dome slab and sanplat) as an occupation. They are very determined to go on doing it even after we go out at the end of the project.
In senti / Chimoka / Ng’oma project there had been problems emanating from deep rooted reasons which had existed for many years even before we moved in. These made it impossible for the communities to work together even during the initial phases of the project. But since our interventions things have improved so much that they are able to work together in developmental work. The sweetest part of this is that while these areas were the hub of cholera attacks in the past, since we started operating in the area there has never been a single cholera victim for the past 3 years.
MATAMA is very proud in that though it has handled projects from different Donors, it has never disappointed both in its Financial Management and Activity Output so that we have always started and concluded our projects without abandoning them and we are sure we will continue doing so to win more Donor Support in uplifting the livelihoods of the peri –urban and rural citizenry in our chosen areas of mitigation.
Finally we are sure through the support of Water For People (USA) we will have a 5 year strategic plan which will definitely tell in which specific areas we will work and what we want by the end of the 5 year period. Our goals ambitions and successes will be highlighted and shown to others and prospective Donors through our website which again has been funded by Water for People (USA) through its Capacity Building (MATAMA) project.