UAE innovator’s water project changes hundreds of lives in Tanzania
After winning the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Water Award, young innovator Jan Rädel went straight to work, transferring every dollar of his prize money to Tanzania. All he wanted was to provide potable water to people in the East African country. Now, his three new projects are nearly complete, ready to connect three school communities to supply of safe drinking water by the end of 2021.
The award — launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-president and Prime Minister of the
UAE and Ruler of Dubai — is now in its third cycle, with applications set to close on April 30. Under the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, the UAE Water Aid Foundation (Suqia) supervises the $1-million award that encourages innovators to present solutions to water scarcity.
Rädel was one such innovator. Before turning 30, he travelled to Tanzania, where he saw first-hand the hardships faced by the local communities in trying to obtain clean water. He was used to fresh water being available at the turn of the tap. But for the first time in his life, he had to prepare his water for the next day by sedimenting it overnight and boiling it the next day before he could drink it.
This was how Rädel’s ‘Jadi Maji’ initiative was born. He set up a water plant that harvests rainwater and employs a gravitydriven ultrafiltration system to purify the collected water. It uses solar power to pump and distribute the water.
At the time of his application for the second cycle of the water Award, Rädel had three such plants up and running, bringing drinking water to schools and at least 1,170 students in Tanzania. With this project, he was selected as a joint winner of the Innovative Individual Award – Youth Category. “(The award) enabled me to work with partners on three projects simultaneously. By the end of 2021, we intend to finish all the three new plants,” said Rädel.