Rehabilitation Project
Upon completion of the project, our partner in the field reports...
Community Details
Thirsty and desperate for safe drinking water, community leaders in Habre Village in the Zambo Commune of Burkina Faso sought help from the Living Water Burkina Faso team to end a personal water crisis lived daily by 87 families and a primary school with 210 pupils. The water options available in Habre Village were: four unprotected hand-dug wells, surface water, two tube wells and two protected hand-dug wells. Though the community had access to an improved water point, their well was slow producing water and was unable to support the needs of this growing community and school. Because of this, families and pupils started seeking water elsewhere—this action had consequently lead to the entry of water-related illnesses, including cholera, dysentery, typhoid and malaria. When the Living Water team entered the community to restore their water point, an absence of sufficient, safe drinking water was not the only condition suffered by families, as unsafe hygiene practices, including open defecation, were also a pervasive side effect of uninformed hygiene and sanitation choices. The Living Water team was able to restore the community’s water point by replacing the pump head, pump handle, pump base, pump rod-sucker rods, pump reservoir-water tank, rising main-drop pipe, cylinder, chain and cylinder seal assembly. This community and primary school, once burdened by poor hygiene and unsafe drinking water, is burdened no more. The rehabilitation of this improved water point also supports
work being done through the PIGEPE small scale irrigation project that provides hand-dug wells, compost pits, rock bundling and drop irrigation for gardens in Africa. To keep safe water in their community, families assembled a six-person, gender-equal Water Committee, that will not only work to ensure safe water remains accessible in the community, but also supplied the Living Water team with materials and labor and security over the drilling equipment during the night. The Water Committee was also willing to be trained to maintain their improved water point and manage its water resources.
During the construction of the improved water point, the pastor and congregation from the Assembly of God church worked with the team as well. The church pastor shared the gospel alongside the Living Water team and is committed to following up with families, now using the provision of safe drinking water as an entry-point to sharing the Good News!
Hygiene Promotion
"Our gratitude and thanks to your association and all the partners who helped us with this grand work," shared a beneficiary. "We ask God, the All Powerful, to give you grace and protection that you may continue your work for God." To allow Habre Village the full benefits of truly knowing safe water, the Living Water team, using a LWI Traditional Method, which is a participatory method to help community members discover ways to improve their hygiene and sanitation choices and implement community-driven solutions, shared life-saving hygiene and sanitation lessons with 165 beneficiaries. The lessons addressed are: germs, hand washing-proper techniques and water saving methods, good-bad hygiene behaviors, proper care of the pump and keeping the water clean. After the lessons, a beneficiary shared, "We are satisfied to receive these lessons in hygiene that you have come to teach our students today. It's a great help for the school, because it permits the students to better understand that hygiene and sanitation protects everyone from falling sick."
Community Member Interview
"First of all, I want to thank you for thinking of us," shared 40-year-old beneficiary and schoolteacher, Sie. "This pump was about worn out. I thought that with this new school year, this rehabilitation would help our administration, teachers, students and also the village. I am going to transmit this action with my superiors in government. May God help this project to go far and come to the aid of other villages that suffer—water in the middle of social life is the source of life. I thank you infinitely."
