By Emmanuel Mawanza, Infrastructure Officer, Mashonaland West Province
When we started construction here at Mamina Bridge, the river was flooded. We started with construction at the end of the bridge on both sides of the bridge. The area near the entrance to the irrigation scheme will be the level of the bridge upon completion. Right now the contractor is doing what we call grouting. After grouting they will lay the slab for the bridge. The pipes on the bridge will be constructed at a higher level than usual.
This is because we have adopted the Green Roads for Water approach. This is a concept on which we were trained by MetaMeta and adopted by the Makueni County in Kenya. We had a team from Kenya that came to train us on the initiative. Upon completion, this bridge will be 1,5 metres high and we will have a small dam of the left. After storing a certain volume of water in the small dam, water will then flow under this bridge.
This small dam is expected to hold a significant amount of water for watering livestock as well as irrigation of small gardens and cultivation of orchards by the community nearby. The small dam will assist not only the homesteads near this bridge but also beneficiaries of the irrigation scheme and the community as they do not have any permanent water source where their livestock waters from.
The Green Roads for Water does not end with the bridge only, but we are going to construct mitre drains to capture water that is flowing along the road. We will also plant plantation trees and orchards. This will be on the advice of the Department of Mechanisation in the Ministry of Agriculture which is also a partner in implementing this concept.
