Teka Maji, community-owned water company in Dar es Salaam
The Community Water Supply and Sanitation project financed by Tanzania, Belgium and the European Union, aims at providing clean, safe and reliable water supply and sanitation facilities in the unplanned settlements of Dar es Salaam.
Community participation is encouraged throughout the project, especially concerning the management of the water facilities. Communities are encouraged to set up community-owned companies responsible for the provision of clean and affordable water in their areas. This assures better transparency of the income and expenditures of the water facility management.
In the Temeke area of Dar es Salaam, a first community-owned company has been registered: the Temeke Kampuni Maji (or Teka Maji, which incidentally also means « to fetch water » in Kiswahili).
In this video, the people of Temeke explain how they overcame their doubts concerning the project after a lot of other interventions in their area failed and how they see the involvement of the community as an encouraging new approach to the problems of reliable water supply in the city.
