Videos & photos from the training in Madagascar, September 2007
These photos and video clips were taken during the Training in Water & Sanitation for Development & Emergencies that was held in Madagascar in September 2007. We hope it gives a flavour of the practical side of our training and encourages you to sign up!
Jetting
During the second week we carried out some jetting near one of the lakes in Fort Dauphin. Here everyone had a go to wash in a home-made screen.
Access more photos by clicking the following:
Hand-dug wells
One of the major achievements was that our participants managed to construct a shallow hand-dug well as part of the training, the construction of which spanned the whole 2 weeks. The construction took place in a local village where we had carried out community mapping with participants from a previous training. This way, the village was already prepared and we also knew about the existing water sources and had population data to use.
The technique we used followed Watt's book Hand Dug Wells and Their Construction (1979) where a permanent in-situ lining is cast, followed by a smaller diameter telescopic lining that is caissoned (sunk) into the water table independently of the permanent lining.
The construction started on the first Wednesday of the course and continued right through to the last day during the second week when we actually installed the slab and handpump with the villagers. This allowed our participants to see hand-dug well construction from start to finish while also seeing that part of their course fees paid for a much-needed safe water source for a local village.
For more hand-dug well photos, click on the following links:
Casting blocks for the telescopic lining
Making the rebar cage prior to casting the in-situ lining
BushProof low-tech drilling
We managed to try drilling a shallow borehole using the BushProof drilling technique, allowing everyone the chance to get muddy! This technique is a field-tested combination that we have experimented with in Madagascar which combines jetting, rotary mud flush drilling and EMAS techniques.
Check out the following video clips:
Handpump operation
Apart from the Canzee handpump that we installed in the village on our hand-dug well, we also managed to see the workings of both a Rope pump and a Treadle pump.
These are some of the pumps installed on the roof of the training centre, allowing us to install and operate the pumps , but also to be able to take a closer look at the pumping mechanism at ground level.
You can see our rooftop pumps here.
Chlorine & alum jar tests
We carried out jar tests for both chlorination and coagulation & flocculation.
The chlorination jar test was done using 15-litre buckets, and allowed us to calculate the amount of 1% solution we would need to chlorinate our tap water.
The coagulation & flocculation test was done using 1-litre beakers with aluminium sulphate, and allowed us to figure out what the optimum dose would be.
Biosand filter construction
We cast a concrete sand filter, and the next day removed the mould. Towards the end of the second week we installed the filter with gravel and sand and started its operation.
In addition to this we had carried out a sand sieve analysis to find out both the effective size and uniformity coefficient of our local sand to find out if it would be suitable for slow sand filtration.
Latrine slab construction
Two types of latrine slab were made:
Firstly a 1 square metre ordinary slab with footrests and lid which required reinforcement. Here are some photos:
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Secondly a dome slab without reinforcement was made. Everyone got stuck in with concrete mixing and casting.
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Visit to local gravity water scheme
On the weekend we visited a local gravity fed water supply scheme. This involved some trekking in the forest up to a waterfall and discussing the problems that we encountered.
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Visit to local water treatment works
We made a visit to one of the Fort Dauphin water treatment works to see how abstraction, coagulation, filtration and chlorination was done in practice on an urban scale.
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Wandering around the sedimentation tank
Off to have a look at the abstraction
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Rainwater collection
We used rainfall data from Fort Dauphin to calculate how many months we could supply water to the training centre, given the roof size and tank storage capacity.
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