Water for People and Water Aid have joined hands in making sure that the cities of Blantyre and Lilongwe are clean.
The two organizations met on Wednesday in the commercial city of Blantyre to teach each other ways of making the cities clean in a solid waste project by Blantyre’s Water for People.
Martin Meke who is senior program officer for Lilongwe based Water Aid told Malawi24 their journey to Blantyre has been productive claiming they have learned something in as far as waste management program is concerned.
Meke said they want to make the capital city of Lilongwe beautiful by collecting all the garbage as their friends are doing in the commercial city.
In a separate interview, Business Development Officer for Water for People Linditasi Kayuni said it was very exciting that the two organizations met to teach each other on solid waste management and sanitation.
Kayuni said they introduced the solid waste management program as part of completing sanitation value chain which is the recycling of the wastes.
She added that the organization is now focusing much on projects in two districts namely Blantyre and Chikhwawa.
According to Kayuni, Water Water for People in conjunction with the Blantyre City Council has employed over 40 people who collect wastes in different areas and turn them into briquettes and the money goes to the workers themselves.
“Basically the aim of this project is that we want to keep the city clean forever and we don’t to collect the trash in the city and dump them somewhere but we saw it wise enough to make cash out of the same trash by turning them into briquettes.
“Someone may ask the relation between water and waste management, the thing we are doing this to avoid these solid wastes to get into rivers especially during rainy season a development which could make the waters not safe,” said Kayuni.
As a matter of helping the government in dealing with unemployment levels in the country, Kayuni said their organization together with the Blantyre City Council is employing people to join the waste management project by collecting wastes and produce briquettes.
Malawi24 wanted to know what profits are there in joining the project of waste management and interviewed one of the employees, Charles Chazika who is based in Chirimba.
Chazika said there is money in this project and has since encouraged those with interest to not hesitate but to join them saying they are making money out of the wastes by producing briquettes which are used as a replacement for charcoal.
