Rehabilitation Project
A hotel in this part of Tulun Community used to occasionally allow people to collect water from its taps, but that's no longer the case after a recent change in ownership. Packaged water is readily available for those who can afford it, but only a handful of families can sustain the expense.
Hope Assembly of God School and Church occasionally has water delivered to fill its tank, but it is expensive to maintain.
However, most people must resort to traveling a decent distance to collect water from a swamp. And water accessibility in the swamp source is largely dependent on the time of the year.
During the rains, water will is in abundance so all groups of people here can collect as much water as they want if they can make it up and down the steep hill. The hill to the water point is so steep that it makes it very tough for anyone to fetch the quantity of water they might want. But accessibility begins to subside as the dry season comes and peaks.
There are no rules to help keep the swamp a safe environment, and the water is completely open to pollution. There is nobody to control it so everyone does as he or she feels at the water point - further contaminating the already open source.
The people use the same source for bathing, laundry, farming and other activities. Chemicals used, especially for laundry and bathing, are very dangerous to humans and some of it makes its way into the swamp. There is also a problem with people throwing trash wherever they want and this has an effect on the water.
That is why we are going to drill a new well at Hope Assembly of God School and Church.
This school is the brainchild of three people, pastor Micheal S. Conteh, Pastor Richard Anderson and the current headmistress, Mrs. Bintu Sarah Conteh. Upon the establishment of the church and learning that the community is deprived in the area of education, these three people came up with the idea of establishing a school and they started formal classes in 2009.
The church and the school have a very good hygiene and sanitation practice for their latrines. The rooms are clean and dry with water and soap available in the wash hand facility.
But this is not the case for the larger community in which the people tend to be a little not careful about the hygiene and sanitation condition of their latrines. However, few homes in this place maintain a very high standard of hygiene and sanitation in their toilets. There are two stalls and then one room for bathing.
Here’s what we plan to do about it:
Training
There will be hygiene and sanitation training sessions offered for three days in a row.
After our visit, the hygiene and sanitation trainer decided it would be best to teach community members how to build a tippy tap (a hand-washing station built with a jerrycan, string, and sticks). They will use these tippy taps for hand-washing demonstrations, and will also teach about other tools like dish racks and the importance of properly penning in animals.
These trainings will also build up and strengthen a water user committee that will manage and maintain this well. They will enforce proper behavior and report to us whenever they need our help solving a serious problem, like a pump breakdown.
New Well
This borehole will be located at Hope Assembly of God School and Church in Tulun Community, which is the best location because there are no latrines nearby.
Our team will drive over the LS200 mud rotary drill rig and set up camp for a couple of nights. Once the well is drilled to a sufficient water column, it will be cased, developed, and then tested. If these tests are positive, our mechanics will install a new India Mark II pump.
This community has struggled to find clean water to drink. By drilling this borehole, people living near and the students attending Hope Assembly of God School and Church will be provided with plenty of safe drinking water.
