News

Quick refresher Jacana has been working on improving and refining affordable solar pumps for several years now. The first solar pumps were installed in boreholes near homes in 2020. This had to be done near the home, because if you installed them anywhere else, the...

Petauke case study video Jacana has been working with Skat Foundation from Switzerland for years. In June 2024, Skat made a video about practical examples in Petauke and surroundings. The team in Petauke worked very hard to realize Petauke SMART training center. The...

Organic agro training High cost of farming inputs like fertilizer and pesticides, remain the biggest obstacle for African smallholder farmers to expand. Jacana through a project named ‘From auto pilot to Champion farmer’ sponsored by AFAS Foundation, conducted a...

In large parts of the world, people do not give a second thought to where the water from the tap comes from. It is so taken for granted that there is access to water at any time of the day. Thankfully. Unfortunately, the reality for many people in other parts of the...

It is a known fact that limited access to water plays a key role in development. Good located boreholes create access to ground water, reduce poverty and increase health. Drilling boreholes is a costly and risky business. High quality borehole siting can reduce that...

Also this year Eastern Manual Drilling won the first prize in the Agricultural show in Chipata Zambia. Want to know more about them: www.emd-zambia.comCongratulations. Keep up the good work.

Worldwide interest in affordable water solutions is rising rapidly. Opportunities for you to learn and share: Event: UN Water Conference, Book: Self-supply Filling the gaps, Detailed study: SMART Approach. Next week UN Water Conference will be held in New York. This...

Since 2017, Jacana has trained several entrepreneurs in manual borehole drilling. There are currently 20 drillers active. When a driller receives an assignment to drill a borehole, his team consists of a fellow driller and two to four helpers. The driller in charge...

DAPP has several projects all over Zambia. Recently, they started a project for water and sanitation in the north-western part of Zambia. For that project, DAPP called in the help of Jacana. One of the objectives of the project is to provide affordable water solutions...

Eastern Manual Drilling cooperative (EMD) trained by Jacana SMART Center in Zambia won the 1st price yesterday at the provincial agro-show. EMD also presented them selves and won prices at the district agro-shows in Petauke, Chipata and Lundazi. Well done guys!

Jacana has trained and guided many small-scale entrepreneurs in recent years with the aim of enabling them to expand their businesses. Frederick Phiri is one of these entrepreneurs. Frederick is 23 years old and lives in Chipata with his father, mother, 3 brothers and...

Position: Manager Location: Chipata   Background Eastern Manual Drilling Co-operative (EMD) is founded in 2018 and has 26 members. EMD is drilling boreholes manually and installs pumps. In the last 3 years more than 400 boreholes were drilled and 70.000 people...

After six months of hard work, the water entrepreneurs in Petauke have been trained and are now ready to drill boreholes and install pumps independently without supervision.The tools for manual drilling and the rope pumps are supplied by the trained welders and...

Every now and then we are asked why trainers come from “far”. And by “far” we mean the Netherlands, USA, Tanzania and Malawi, among others. The reason for this is simple: we first need to train local trainers and they must have sufficient experience. When we started...

Covid-19 restricted our training programmes, but risks have reduced and we are allowed to train again. Just in time for the Jacana SMART Centre in Petauke to kick-off. Over the past two months, a lot of hard work has gone into providing the office in Petauke (which is...

See an article about Jacana SMART Centres in a Dutch printed paper. Read the digital copy here. Jacana will also be on Dutch national television once again NPO 2 on 24 October 2021around 12:55.

This is our contribution to Stockholm World Water Week. The session was about Self-supply and water security for all so allow me to I start with a statement. Can we provide 50% of the SDG6 target group with family owned water supply; without spending more than...

After a year of hard work, Jacana Business Center is finally ready. With a team of 33 people, we worked on it for a year. Of course we had setbacks, but overall everything was achieved within the set goals. How it all started In 2016 Jacana moved from central Zambia...

Position: Technical field officer in Water Sector Location: Starting in Petauke and maybe later during the year other districts in Eastern Province Start Date: 1 September 2021 Background Jacana supports small Zambian entrepreneurs in realizing their plans to grow....

1. How much water do you need per day? and 2. What is the pressure your pump must deliver?   Each pump sales person should ask these questions. In most cases, your first estimated answer will be way off. As a result, the pump you are buying is too expensive. 1....

Great book on Self-supply Filling the gaps in public water supply provision by Dr. Sally Suton and John Butterworth. On the first day of publication, the book was downloaded more than 500 times already.‘Self-supply has long been overlooked because it is largely...

As one of the COVID-19 responses the Jacana SMART Centre in Zambia took the initiative to provide water to Health Centres in Eastern Zambia. This initiative was supported by Wilde Ganzen and several other donors. The Dutch Water sector wrote an news article about this...

2020 was a challenging year for all of us. Covid-19 has turned the whole world upside down. Fortunately, in Zambia, we have been less affected than expected. Why, is still a great mystery, but we hope that it will remain this way. This does not alter the fact that...

Position: Field officer  Apply before: 15 Jan 2021 Location: Chipata, Zambia   Background Jacana supports small-scale Zambian entrepreneurs in realizing their plans to grow. Jacana has two departments one is focussing on general entrepreneurs and the other on...

Last year we were able to test some very affordable solar pumps. One of them was very good (€ 35). This year we are again testing a range of other solar pumps of similar design. The demand for affordable solar pumps is high and once again thanks to Marie-Stella-Maris...

Why Jacana Business Centre? Just a quick refresher: why is Jacana building a Business Centre? In this centre we want to give small scale entrepreneurs a chance to expand their business with the help of Jacana. This can be in the provision of office and/or work space,...

You can imagine that the equipment for borehole siting (Vertical Electric Sounding or VES) has been used intensively in recent months. Not only within our own province for the clinics, but even beyond on a two day drive from Lundazi, 10 sites have been measured....

Thanks to your generous donations, the total amount of water for health centres in the Eastern Province has been raised and is doubled by Wilde Ganzen.   We visited and checked all 70 health centres who said they needed water, 34 health centres met Jacana's criteria....

The fact that most hospitals in Zambia do not have respirators is terrible at this time. But the fact that more than 10% of the health centres in Eastern Zambia, an area the size the Netherlands, has no water to wash hands, is a disaster. If not addressed, these...

Situation in Zambia Unfortunately, the first people in Zambia tested positive for the COVID-19 virus. All kinds of measures have been announced by the President, one of them is washing hands and keeping a distance. This will be quite a challenge for Zambian...

All part are ​worldwide ​available in ​common hardware shops ​and shops that ​sell car ​parts. Cost about ​$100 including ​solar panel. The pump is ​ideal for very ​narrow tube ​wells, starting ​at 2" (50mm) ​casing and ​bigger. ​Suitable for ​wells that ​produce very...

This month Eastern Manual Drilling (EMD, trained by Jacana SMART Centre Zambia) celebrates its first year of existence and what a year it was: EMD drilled 148 boreholes and provided almost 10,000 people with affordable access to water. EMD now buys pipes in bulk. Last...

The only way to provide water for all, to a growing population in developing countries, is to capacitate the same people to solve that problem. EMAS and SMART Centres have been training and guiding small-scale entrepreneurs in developing countries for many years....

Our Jacana employees and drillers from Eastern Manual Drilling have recently been trained in the electronic surveying of soil structures with Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) and Horizontal Electrical Profiling (HEP). Randy Jones and Ray McKee from the USA revealed...

This #WWWeek SMART Centres present "Water entrepreneurs" (25 Aug) + "Sanitation entrepreneurs" (28 Aug) and more @siwi_water talk to us at our both.Read more at: www.worldwaterweek.org

Allow me to introduce myself: My name is Bert Pfleger member of the EMAS board (Germany). Together with Wolfgang Buchner, who is the founder of the EMAS training centre and has more than 40 years experience in the Self-supply, we traveled to Zambia last...

In April & May 2019, a very enthusiast and assorted group of 4 welders and 8 drillers has been trained in Lundazi, Zambia. The 12 participants were selected in several steps from a pool of 45 candidates. After interviews and visits to workshops, we...

WaterAid Zambia and Jacana signed a Memorandum of Understanding for five years. Both parties foresee challenges realising Sustainable Development Goal 6.1 by 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all.The...

To our great joy we can announce that Jacana has been chosen as the winner of the 2018/2019 Jobena Award.This is a huge recognition and boost for Jacana's work. Jobena Foundation was founded in 1996 with the aim of supporting cultural projects and...

Learn manual borehole drilling in tutorial below. Jacana SMART Centre trains manual drillers of  boreholes. It’s very difficult to explain what is happening deep under the surface (40m).This tutorial is a combination of videos and animations and shows also...

Lieve Sinterklaas, Nog even snel een kado kopen?Zonder naar de winkel te lopen? Regel het hier on-lijn,zonder dat er extra kosten zijn. Steun de mensen op ' t Afrikaanse continent,terwijl u vriend en familie verwend. Het kado is op tijd,en een Zambiaans...

SMART symposium Simple, Market-based, Affordable, Repairable, Technologies. A practical approach to reach SDG 1, 2, 3, 6 and 8 November 13 to 16, 2018 in Mzuzu, Malawi SMART stands for Simple, Market-based, Affordable and Repairable...

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Position:          Field officer in Water Sector Location:         Starting in Chipata and maybe later during the year other districts in Eastern Province Start Date:       1-8-2018   Background Jacana supports small Zambian entrepreneurs in realizing...

With the deepest heartfelt condolences to the family and friends, we wish to announce the passing on of our beloved and hardworking driller Mr. Steven Zulu who passed away on Friday 13th April 2018. Steven was trained by Jacana in manual drilling, as an...

Jacana SMART Training Center trained a year ago welders and drillers to expand their businesses. The welders have learned how to make a rope pump using local materials and the drillers how to drill boreholes manually up to 40 meters deep. In addition, they...

We regret to announce the passing on of our treasurer Mr. John Vaessens, who died on Sunday 1-4-2018. John was involved in Jacana Netherlands from the very beginning. He was working as our treasurer with a lot of dedication, passion and selflessness. Our...

Come and drill yourself a borehole. See you 5 or 6 April 8:00 - 12:00 at Msekera Research Centre field days next week in Chipata.

It rained last night and although we have been in Mkwekwe before, still I am a bit afraid the road might be impassable this morning. But it's not too bad, the car smoothly glides from pothole to pothole. We are not the only one struggling on the road. At...

International training course “Market-led SMARTechs for water & agriculture” 19th to 23rd of March 2018 in Mzuzu, Malawi The SMART Centre SNV are organising an introductory short course to provide policy makers and practitioners in water...

Entrepreneurs for Water disinfect open wells for free. Now let's work together and see how we can solve the issue. People need water and will have to use the water that is available to them. Reality is that not everybody has pipeline water and many simply...

Several communities have worked hard constructing toilets. They are officially declared Open Defecation Free. Now clean water is coming their way thanks to a donation from the "Marie-Stella-Maris foundation".

George had to pay for a water truck to bring water to his building site. After a simple calculation he decided to invest in a rope pump instead of paying for the truck. He not only safes money but now the house also has water once it is completed. George...

Joshua lost his entire tomatoes harvest because of drought. With an affordable and easy to repair pump he will never lose a harvest again this way.

Farmer James Mbewe provides free water to his community. Each bucket they get, helps James irrigate his garden. This way 50 families have free water and James can farm the whole year.

With the affordable pump and hand drilled borehole, Uveren' Gapi Jere now extended her farmland and farms even in dry season.