Water for a Maternity Hospital, two schools and Navunibitu Parish

The Navunibitu water system is one of the largest projects Caritas Fiji has ever done. It involved more than 10km of piping, four water tanks and providing water for more than 700 people, including a maternity hospital.

Navunibitu is an agricultural parish that sits on the dry western side of Viti Levu, Fiji’s largest island. The town has almost 700 people in it, and acts as a hub for the region, with a primary school, a high school, a kindergarten and a local maternity hospital.

Water has always been a challenge for Navunibitu. There are only decent water sources in the area, both of which are springs that are quite far from the village – one is more than 10 kilometers away, across several hills and rivers with some very dense jungle terrain without easy access roads. The other one is about three kilometers away – still not close.

All of the institutions in Navunibitu – the schools, the hospitals and the parish had to regularly ration their use of water. The water supply was highly intermittent, not lasting the full day and sometimes the schools needed to be closed and the hospitals evacuated. There had been a few attempts by different NGOs to solve the issues in Navunibitu, but there had only been limited success.

In Fiji, government support for water in rural communities is very limited. Villages are largely expected to find and manage their own water systems, with the support of various NGOs. Most villages have rudimentary systems directing water from nearby streams to a central tank, but many are aging and unreliable – only providing water for a few hours in the morning, or none at all during the dry season.

Caritas Fiji was approached by Navunibitu in early 2022 as part of the CRS We Rise Project. Navunibitu is known to have significant issues with their water and be a difficult challenge. Caritas Fiji decided to put their hand up and have a go, despite the known geographical challenges of the mountainous regions and being on the dry side of Fiji.

Caritas Fiji first inspected the site in mid 2023. When we visited the hospital was mostly empty due to water issues and the schools were also regularly being closed early. The team first traveled around Navunibitu assessing the geography and the various challenges in the region, particularly going along the water mainline on horseback. We also did a SevuSevu with the traditional landowners to get their blessing for using their land.

The team really needed to design a highly robust system for Navunibitu. Accessing the water source required climbing up steep cliffs and walking for almost a day, meaning that maintenance was going to be a significant challenge. Like with most Caritas Fiji WASH projects – the team designed a gravity only system – it has no electronics or pumps – to ensure it is able to be cared for by the local community with local resources. This ensures long term sustainability – there are many examples of well-intentioned complex water systems in Fiji being built and then not surviving the Fiji wet season.

There were two different sites for tanks added for the Navunibitu project. The first site was at the Parish, where the team placed two 10,000L poly tanks for storage and keeping pressure along the line. The second site was the Ra Maternity hospital where the team placed one 10,000L polyurethane tank to provide water storage for the Maternity hospital.

There were some very significant challenges in these sites. The water system was highly corroded, meaning that most of the pipes had to be replaced from the water source to the tanks. There were many hidden leaks along the lines, at the Maternity hospital, schools and parish due to the age of the infrastructure. The team had to identify each leak individually over the four-month period they stayed on site for the project.

For the first month, the team built the tank basements. The two tanks, when full, weigh over 20 tones, so a significant basement and footing is required to keep them safe and secure long term. This required not only construction, but manual carrying of stones to build the foundations.

The team upgrading the pipes needed 20 to 30 people. First we needed to carry the new PVC pipes to the site. Then the trenching was required to unearth the original 1950s galvanized iron pipes. Then the original pipes needed to be cut so the could be removed and brought back down to the village. Cutting one of these galvanized iron pipes took almost 2 hours – as the team could only use handsaws in the remote location. The team easily went through one hundred saw blades across the four months of the project.

In between the building the tanks and upgrading the pipes, the water source needed to be assessed and cleaned, so that the amount of water flow could be evaluated.