WHO WE WORK WITH
AMASI


"AMASI" means "water" in the local language known as "Emakua." AMASI was formed in mid-1996 as an organisation of educators of rural water users. The organisation provides training and facilitates the organisation and mobilisation of rural communities to maintain, manage and maximize the benefits of shallow water wells and deeper ones known as boreholes in southern Africa.

AMASI has in the past served primarily as a consultant to local, international, bilateral and multilateral organisations in carrying out studies and fieldwork regarding water with rural communities. COCAMO for example contracted AMASI in 1999-2000 to train a community group to fix and maintain 3 boreholes in disrepair in Lalaua district. The project was so successful that one of the community water committees trained by AMASI began providing technical support on request to another community that had received a borehole without adequate management and maintenance training.

In response to AMASI's initiative to define and implement its own programme as an NGO, COCAMO funds another project currently taking place in Ribaue District. AMASI is assisting water committees in 15 communities to effectively manage their waterpoints (wells or boreholes). Though 15 waterpoints were constructed there in the past, they have fallen into various states of disrepair because the community was not involved in their care and maintenance.


AMASI is rectifying this with a process that features an intense mobilisation phase in the villages at the beginning, followed up by lower profile, accompaniment. Meetings with communities stress the following themes: the importance of having a water committee, making contributions to maintenance costs, maintaining cleanliness, how to operate waterpoints, how to control access and how to maintenance them. During this process AMASI brings life to the training by using participatory techniques such as: popular theatre, games, mapping, semi-structured interviews and matrixes. By the end of the project we expect that this combination of process and content will realise 15 water committees effectively managing and maintaining their waterpoints.

AMASI has begun negotiations with the local Water Department to carry out similar activities in neighbouring districts. Local government has indicated to AMASI and COCAMO an interest in extending this arrangement over a longer time period in future. This is an explicit recognition by local government of the expertise AMASI has to offer. It also bodes well for future collaboration between the three parties.