Guest blog by Charles Serele, UNICEF Madagascar
As part of its Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) program in Madagascar, UNICEF is committed to supporting the Ministry of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (MWSH) to build the capacity of the drilling sector. With this in mind, UNICEF organized a training on “Drilling Techniques and Supervision” in collaboration with the MWSH. The training targeted various stakeholders in the water sector, including government departments, drilling companies and consultancy firms who manage water supply projects, supervise or drill boreholes.
The training was held in Antananarivo (Madagascar) and organized in three different sessions of three days each, from February 7th to 23th, 2018. Fifty-four participants, including fifteen women attended the training course. The training was facilitated by Charles Serele, an experienced WASH Specialist from UNICEF Madagascar.
To enhance individual knowledge and ensure sharing of experiences among participants, the overall approach used to deliver the course involved a mixture of lectures, interactive discussions, group exercises and presentation of drilling videos. Extensive reading materials from RWSN and UNICEF were shared along with exercises to be carried out by the participants.
The course participants actively engaged in the discussions and group activities. The training provided an opportunity to learn from each other and to reflect on what can be improved.
| Course Modules
1. Professionalization of the drilling sector 2. Methods of borehole siting 3. Construction of boreholes 4. Supervision of boreholes 5. Management of drilling data |
The course review showed that participants’ technical knowledge in borehole drilling and supervision greatly improved. Participants also expressed their satisfaction with the course content and the relevance of the topics that were covered.
Forty-five participants (83%), including fourteen women passed the evaluation test conducted on the last day of the training. During the official closing ceremony each successful participant received a poster on cost-effective boreholes, in addition to a certificate.
As a next step, a field-based training should be organized to better illustrate best practices in drilling professional and sustainable boreholes.
Additional resources
- If you would like to learn more about the training, you can download the training report in English or French. UNICEF Madagascar has also published specific technical notes on:
- Videos on the professional drilling of boreholes are available on: https://vimeo.com/channels/drilling
- A RWSN webinar on professional drilling in Southern Africa took place in June 2018. Champions for borehole drilling professionalism in Angola, Madagascar, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe (including Dr. Serele) shared their experiences of strengthening professional capacity to manage projects, understand the groundwater resource and introduce groundwater regulations. You can watch the recordings here:
- English: https://vimeo.com/273842040
- Portuguese: https://vimeo.com/273847798
The training course was facilitated by Charles Serele, UNICEF Madagascar and organized under the supervision of the Chief of WASH, Silvia Gaya and with the support of the UNICEF WASH team. For additional information, contact UNICEF Madagascar on antananarivo@unicef.org.
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