A Year Later: DEC Primary School

A year ago, generous donors helped restore clean water to a well for DEC Primary School and the surrounding community in Santiguya, Sierra Leone. The contributions of incredible monthly donors and others giving directly to The Water Promise allow teams to visit project sites throughout the year, strengthening relationships with communities and evaluating the water project over time. These consistent visits allow us to learn vital lessons and hear amazing stories – we’re excited to share this one from Edward Amara with you.

The lives of people here have improved tremendously when compared to the years before. Because a good number of students and people attended a hygiene training around a year ago, they now live in a healthy community that not only has an abundance of pure drinking water, but enough to wash their hands after using the toilet.

We spoke with Headteacher Morlai Conteh and one of his students, Alusine Sesay to talk about other changes they have witnessed over the past year with reliable water nearby.

"This project has brought a great development to this community by giving us pure drinking water both for the school and the community as a whole. Even myself as a teacher in this school. I depend directly on this pump because I stay in the school quarters," said Headteacher Conteh.

From left to right: Alusine Sesay, Headteacher Morlai Conteh, and Edward Amara

"Well, as far as I am concerned, the pump rescued us from many constraints because before, we used to go to the swamp to fetch drinking water. Sometimes even when school was going on we had to leave our classes and go to the swamp just to fetch water for our sustenance, which made us miss a lot of lessons," said Alusine.

Alusine Sesay

He continued, "Now, life has totally changed in this community because we have pure drinking water. We don’t go to the swamp anymore to fetch water because we already have pure drinking water in our school compound."

Playtime would normally be sacrificed to fetch the water needed to run the school. Now, students can not only spend more time in class, but spend more time playing, too!

Headteacher Conteh added, "I know that the pupils should wash their hands after using the toilets with soap and water and also wash their hands before eating any food and after eating it. [We had] made a provision of soap and tippy taps for the pupils. However, they had stolen the tippy tap containers but I am trying to replace them."

The well has had no issues since the project last year. All this school needs to focus on is establishing good hygiene and sanitation practices so as to keep a clean environment that is free of germs.

Restoration of the well is only one step along the journey toward sustainable access to clean water. The Water Project is committed to consistent monitoring of each water source. Our monitoring and evaluation program, made possible by donors like you, allows us to maintain our relationships with communities by visiting up to 4 times each year to ensure that the water points are safe and reliable.

This is just one of the many ways that we monitor projects and communicate with you. Additionally, you can always check the functionality status and our project map to see how all of our water points are performing, based on our consistent monitoring data.

One project is just a drop in the bucket towards ending the global water crisis, but the ripple effects of this project are truly astounding. This functional well at DEC Primary School is changing many lives.

This is not possible without the web of support and trust built between The Water Project, our local teams, the community, and you. We are excited to stay in touch with this community and support their journey with safe water.

Read more about The Water Promise and how you can help.