Alatening Community Water Project is gradually becoming a reality

Water is life and access to water is a fundamental human right. The people of Alatening, under the leadership of HRH Fon Suhfor III, aims to develop one of the most sustainable community lead rural water supply scheme in the region based on lessons learned from previous schemes as well as other community water projects in the North West Region of Cameroon.

To realise this vision, the President of the Alatening Cultural and Development Association (ACDA) , Elvis SAMA set up an Alatening Water Project Committee and called on Chairman Christopher ATANGA to lead the project from design stages, fund raising, construction and delivery to the people of Alatening.

Over the last couple of months, Chairman ATANGA has consulted with a wide range of sons and daughters of Alatening and pulled together an amazing team to deliver the project. The team includes Cho Cosmos FON, GIS Specialist, who is undertaking all the mapping  for the project. His brief from Chairman ATANGA is to convert all the technical information and jargon, into simple mapping that will show case the critical needs for the water project.

A broad-based consultative meeting held on 26 September 2021, by members of the Committee to discuss the progress in the technical design and costings of the Alatening Community Water Project. The preliminary designs were reviewed in detail and areas of uncertainty identified and used to inform the preparation of a Terms of Reference (TOR) for detailed design and consisting. Following the preparation of the TORs, ACDA signed  a contract with MM Water Works Establishment (Rural Water Supply Design and Delivery Firm) Bamenda. The Contract No 001/ACDA/ACWP/PG-WPC/2021 signed between ACDA and the Director MM Water Works Ets was signed on the 08 October 2021

The scope of work in the contract which was aimed at obtaining further information to finalize the technical designs of the scheme and collecting geo-localized data to enable the preparation of adequate maps of the key infrastructure on the scheme, included the following specific scope:

1. Undertake a fact-finding mission in Alatening, assess all areas of understanding and provide technical guidance to the ACWP Committee.
2. Finalise the scheme design based on comments received from the ACWP Committee and technical knowledge of rural water supply design and implementation.
3. Design and deliver to the ACWP a fully costed project based on the agreed design principles (e.g., location of catchments, number of storage tanks, size of storage tanks allowing for future growth in population, size of water pipelines, allowances for private connection, public stand taps, design of the groundwater boreholes, etc). 
4. The project costs (Bill of Quantities) should include an allowance for project management, commissioning, and operational costs for year 1 of the scheme. The cost should make allowances for the execution of the scheme over several phases.
5. All deliverables should be in electronic form (word and excel) and drawings in appropriate electronic format (e.g., AutoCAD, SketchUp, etc).

The technical report is expected in October 2021, following which stakeholder engagements will be undertaken in Alatening, at the Alatening Palace Plaza to present the project to the end users of the scheme (people of Alatening) and where required gather further information to refine and optimise the scheme. These will be undertaken in parallel with community sensitisation and education as well as fund raising activities.

We cannot wait to see this project come to fruition. It is a big challenge but TOGETHER, we can do it…via the power of community mobilisation and engagement.