The Broken Borehole and the Village Bank
In Chikondi Village, 84 households share one borehole. When the pump handle breaks, women and girls walk 2 km to an unprotected well that is also used by cattle. Within a week, six children have diarrhoea and two families have stopped sending girls to fetch water after dark. The Village Development Committee has K120,000 in its village bank. The chairperson wants to use all of it to repair the borehole. A maize-mill group says the money was saved for its project. The traditional leader suggests that unemployed youths do the repair, but they have no tools or training. The district water officer estimates K95,000 for spare parts and K25,000 for a trained mechanic, and asks the village to form a water-point committee that includes women and young people. At a crowded meeting, older men say women should not handle money, while youths say they are tired of being blamed for breakdowns.
1. Identify the two main tensions in this meeting and explain how the village can resolve them using the idea of living together in a community.
Read the worked answer
The first tension is between the chairperson's urgent repair plan and the maize-mill group's claim on the savings. The second is between older men's view that women should not handle money and the demand by women and youths to be included. A living-together approach treats both as problems of fair procedure, not of who is more important.
The village should separate the emergency from the long-term plan: call a short village meeting, let the water committee present the district officer's figures, and ask each group to state its minimum need. The K120,000 is not enough for both the full repair and the mill, so the meeting should agree on a temporary rule, for example repair first and replace the mill contribution from the next harvest. On inclusion, the chief should enforce the district requirement that the water-point committee has women and youths, but pair new members with an experienced treasurer so that distrust is reduced. The aim is a decision everyone helped make, not a vote that leaves one group humiliated.
2. Recommend a decision about the K120,000 and a simple monitoring plan that the village can use.
Read the worked answer
The strongest decision is to spend K95,000 on spare parts and K25,000 on the mechanic only if the village bank rules allow an emergency withdrawal. Before money leaves the bank, the committee should record the resolution, name two signatories (one woman and one youth representative), and obtain a receipt from the mechanic. The maize-mill group should not be told its project is cancelled; it should receive a written statement that its contribution is deferred and a date for review.
Monitoring should be simple: a numbered receipt for parts, a photo or serial number of the new handle, a repair date on the borehole wall, and a rota for two caretakers. The water-point committee should report at the next village meeting on three questions: Is the pump working? Are women and youths still on the committee? Has the distance to the unprotected well fallen? If the pump fails within a month, the same committee should ask the district office to inspect the repair before paying any balance. This protects both the money and trust.