This summer, two King Edward’s alumni – Yasmine Shafiq and Elwin Marshall – will be volunteering for eight weeks with the Cambridge Development Initiative (CDI). CDI is a registered charity and student-led organisation which works in partnership with local government agencies to improve the well being of communities in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.
Operating in Dar Es Salaam’s informal settlements, where residents earn under $1 per day and lack access to adequate sanitation, the CDI Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH) project implements a sustainable and community-centred solution. The WaSH project prevents water-borne illnesses by training and employing local technicians to build safe simplified sewerage systems, along with toilets. The new Year 13 students will recall Yasmine’s inspiring assembly linked to work experiences and enrichment and Year 11 students may also remember an assembly last Christmas from Yasmine about her previous work on this project.
To promote this initiative’s economic and environmental sustainability, the CDI WaSH team aims to offer biogas as a renewable alternative to charcoal. Since 2015, CDI has been testing biodigestor technology, which turns waste collected by the sewerage networks into biogas. CDI intends to ensure the continued benefits of the project by transitioning from the current biodigestor model to one that is locally sourced through a Tanzanian supplier. This shift will enable community members to efficiently undertake repairs while creating a social enterprise through which biogas sales will fund the construction of new sewerage networks. To accomplish this goal, CDI need to raise an additional £2,000.
Any donations, however small, from KEVI students, applicants, teachers or parents would make a huge difference to the impact that the CDI WaSH project could have this year. Please have a look at the JustGiving page for more information about the project (including impact reporting, photographs and video links) and consider donating if you can: https://www.justgiving.com/
