Project Status



Project Type:  Borehole Well and Hand Pump

Regional Program: Port Loko, Sierra Leone WaSH Program

Impact: 277 Served

Project Phase:  In Service - May 2021

Functionality Status:  Functional

Last Checkup: 07/03/2024

Project Features


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The Poultry Street community in Rosint has become a very diversified community with tailors, farmers, petty traders, fishers, carpenters, and the list of professions goes on and on. Large trees that practically cover the entire house line the backyard of every home. The large trees act as protection from the hot and humid sun. Pigs and chicken also look for a shady environment to rest and look for any available water. Further down the bumpy road, stands on either side houses that lead to one of the several swamp land used for planting various fruits and vegetables.

In the past, most of the 227 people here used a hand-dug well for water. But the property was purchased by someone who closed community access to the well. Left with no other place to fetch water, they have no option but to use any available source regardless of the quality. All privately owned wells are under lock and key. Getting up early in the morning, children, men, and women go in separate directions looking for any available water source.

The primary water source is at the home of one of the law enforcement officers, Mr. Samuel Sesay, a high ranking police officer. He allows community members to access water from the well. However, it is near his farm. From past experiences, wells with no fence or gate and dug less than 40 feet deep have a likely chance that the water is contaminated. And since the well is on private property, there is the chance that Mr. Sesay could restrict access at any time.

"I still get up very early in the morning to fetch water before the whole neighborhood starts to come. My mother and father have given my siblings and me strict instructions to never prevent anyone from using the well," said his daughter Kadiatu.

There is one member of the community by the name of Alpha Bangura, who provides water delivery services to people here. His hours of operation start at 8 am and end at 2 pm a schedule that never changes for anyone. He gets paid to fetch water, and some people prefer using his services at a reasonable price, then subject their children or themselves to the embarrassment of rejection from using the private wells. Alpha is known throughout the community, and preferential treatment is always offered to him. There are no restrictions on private wells for Alpha. The other families that can not afford his services resort to having their family members take up the responsibility.

What we can do:

New Well

We will be drilling this well at Poultry Street. This project will relieve the people here of the their water challenges.

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 been pushed to open, contaminated well for their water. By drilling this borehole, Tholmossor Community will be provided with plenty of accessible clean drinking water.

Training

There will be hygiene and sanitation training sessions offered for three days in a row.

Community members will learn how to make a handsfree handwashing station called the "tippy-tap." We will use these tippy taps for handwashing demonstrations and will also teach about other tools like dish racks and the importance of properly penning in animals. We will highlight the need to keep latrines clean, among many other topics.

This training will also strengthen a water user committee that will manage and maintain this new well. They will enforce proper behavior and report to us whenever they need our help in solving a serious problem, like a pump breakdown.

Project Updates


May, 2021: Rosint Community, #24 Poultry St Project Complete!

We are excited to share a safe, reliable borehole well at #24 Poultry St in Rosint in already providing clean, safe water! The community members no longer have to rely on unsafe water to meet their daily needs. We also conducted hygiene and sanitation training, which focused on healthy practices such as handwashing and using latrines.

New Well

The drilling of this new borehole was a success, and clean water is flowing!

"Thank you for drilling this well in our community because the intervention has saved the lives of people in this community. For so long, members of this community had suffered and faced many challenges for safe drinking water. Still, today we are all saying bye to all of these difficulties," said Ramatu Dao, a local trader.

The dedication of the new well started with prayers and supplications. The community members celebrated in a grand style with musical sets and traditional musical instruments. They gave thanks to us for giving them safe and reliable drinking water. Community members served food and drinks to everyone who witnessed the dedication. A representative from the Ministry of Water Resources Port Loko district joined the community members in marking the occasion.

"Today is the happiest day of our lives in this community because the sufferings for access to safe drinking water have come to an end. The presence of this well is very important to us, and I know with all my heart that this safe and reliable drinking water will improve our way of living and free us from many water-related illnesses," shared Adamsay D.

Well dedication celebration.

The Process

The drill team arrived the day before beginning work. They set up camp and unpacked all of their tools and supplies to prepare for drilling the next day. The community provided space for them to store their belongings and meals for the duration of their stay. The following day, the work began.

We dug two pits next to the drill rig, one for the drill’s water supply and another for what is pulled out of the borehole. In some cases, we order a private supplier to deliver the water for drilling since water access is already a struggle.

Day one of drilling starts by filling the two pits with water mixed with bentonite. A four-inch carbide-tipped bit is fixed to the five-foot-long drill stem. The mud pump starts to supply water to the drill rig, and the drilling begins. The team takes a material sample after every five-foot length of drill stem is put into the hole. The bags were labeled and reviewed later to determine the aquifer locations.

On the second day of drilling, the team expands the hole and clears it of mud. The team reached a total depth of 6 meters. The team forcefully pumps clean water into the well to clear out any mud and debris from drilling. After, the screened pipe is protected by adding a filter pack. The team hoists the temporary drilling casing to fortify the pipes with cement.

The well is bailed by hand for three days before conducting a yield test to verify the water quantity. The yield of this well was 20 liters per minute, at a static water level of 5 meters.

With these excellent results, our team installed a stainless steel India MkII pump. Water quality tests show that this is clean water fit for drinking!

New Knowledge

Before conducting any hygiene training, we make repeated phone calls and visits to the local water user committee to better understand the community’s challenges and lack of sanitation facilities. We share the findings from our discussions with the committee members to help them make the necessary adjustments before the training begins. For example, we identify households without handwashing stations or may need to repair their latrines. With this information, community members can work together to improve hygiene and satiation at home.

After that, we schedule a time when members from each household using the water point can attend multi-day hygiene and sanitation training. When that is set, we dispatch our teams to the agreed-upon location to hold the meeting.

The training venue was large enough to accommodate the whole community, held t in one of the community member's compounds close to the drilling site. There were mango trees that gave enough shade and cool ventilation, making the training very easy, interesting, and interactive. A total of 110 people, with representatives from every one of the 45 households in the community, attended the training.

COVID-19 sensitization

Training topics covered included handwashing and tippy taps; good and bad hygiene; disease transmission and prevention; worms and parasites; proper care of teeth; proper care of the pump; keeping the water clean; the cost recovery system; dish racks and clotheslines; the importance of toilets; keeping the latrine clean; balanced diets; the diarrhea doll; and HIV and AIDS.

During the training session that included a demonstration with a diarrhea doll, people started whispering to one another and pointing at the doll, which the trainer displayed. People began asking questions about diarrhea and its causes, saying they believed diarrhea was cleaning the stomach, which sometimes happened to people, especially children, and was not an illness.

The group was surprised to learn that diarrhea results from eating or taking in contaminated food or water. Moreover, the people were thrilled to be trained on making oral rehydration salt solutions at home to help if someone has diarrhea. They promised to take excellent care of their food and water, and they promised to keep their community clean to avoid getting sick.

"This training is very important to me and the rest of my community members, especially the women, because it has helped us get the knowledge of how to take care of our families and community," shared Aminata Turay.

Handwashing demonstration

We also held a special training session on COVID-19 with lessons on the virus and how to prevent its spread. We shared tips like frequent handwashing with soap and clean water, mask-wearing, physical distancing, and more.

"The most helpful part of the COVID-19 sensitization which I received is the sneezing and coughing in the elbow instead of the palm or openly. From this sensitization, it is clear to me now that the virus is airborne so, therefore, sneezing or coughing openly in the air may cause the spread of the disease to another person in close range," said Sulaiman Kamara.

Thank you for making all of this possible!




April, 2021: Rosint Community, #24 Poultry St project underway!

Dirty water is making people in Rosint, Sierra Leone sick. Thanks to your generosity, we’re working to install a clean water point and much more.

Get to know this community through the narrative and pictures we’ve posted, and read about this water, sanitation, and hygiene project. We look forward to reaching out with news of success!




Project Photos


Project Type

Abundant water is often right under our feet! Beneath the Earth’s surface, rivers called aquifers flow through layers of sediment and rock, providing a constant supply of safe water. For borehole wells, we drill deep into the earth, allowing us to access this water which is naturally filtered and protected from sources of contamination at the surface level. First, we decide where to drill by surveying the area and determining where aquifers are likely to sit. To reach the underground water, our drill rigs plunge through meters (sometimes even hundreds of meters!) of soil, silt, rock, and more. Once the drill finds water, we build a well platform and attach a hand pump. If all goes as planned, the community is left with a safe, closed water source providing around five gallons of water per minute! Learn more here!


A Year Later: An Expanding Community of Realized Dreams

May, 2022

A year ago, your generous donation helped Rosint Community in Sierra Leone access clean water – creating a life-changing moment for Morlai. Thank you!

Keeping The Water Promise

There's an incredible community of monthly donors who have come alongside you in supporting clean water in Rosint Community 3.

This giving community supports ongoing sustainability programs that help Rosint Community 3 maintain access to safe, reliable water. Together, they keep The Water Promise.

We’re confident you'll love joining this world-changing group committed to sustainability!

Morlai Kamara, 56, is the harbormaster in Rosint Community. He has lived through several generations of water crisis in his community, and remembers the struggles of living without water as if they happened yesterday.

"The living conditions [were] very poor for me and my family," Morlai said.

"My family had to go down the swamp, which was the only source of drinking water in [the] entire community since its establishment. During these times, we were battling with various health conditions like cholera, diarrhea, typhoid, and other diseases that I cannot measure, because I am not a medical expert, but I know these common ones.

"And sometimes, the swamp water [would] dry up in the dry season due to [a] lack of rain. This was the most painful moment for me and [the] community people. We, the men, had to dig it deeper every year, maybe like four times, before [the] raining season [would come] before we had access to water. And sometimes, the deeper we dug the swamp, the more the water [would] become salty because we are close to the sea."

But since Rosint's well was constructed last year, as Morlai explained, all of this has changed for the better.

"I am grateful for such [an] opportunity as [an] elderly person in this community," Morlai continued.

"The joy in my mind is too much that I don't know how to express it right now. My community is free from all the sicknesses that we used to spend plenty [of] money on because this water facility is providing [us] with clean and safe drinking water. It has relie[ved] the burden I used to have when we [got] closer to the dry season.

"This water facility has brought us off the swamp, which was our previous source of drinking water. Because of this water facility in this community, more buildings are coming up and people are buying land to build more houses, thus the community is expanding. And our hygiene and sanitation has improved greatly compared to the previous years."

When we asked Morlai about his goals for the future, he said that his goal was clean drinking water, and that it has already been achieved.

"For a long time now, I have wanted to have access to clean and safe drinking water in my community so that [our] women and children will be free from waterborne diseases that were affecting us greatly. We thank God that we have achieved that dream a year ago. This has been my plan and goal, and I and [my] community have achieved it."

Morlai pumps water while community women celebrate clean water.


Navigating through intense dry spells, performing preventative maintenance, conducting quality repairs when needed and continuing to assist community leaders to manage water points are all normal parts of keeping projects sustainable. The Water Promise community supports ongoing sustainability programs that help Rosint Community 3 maintain access to safe, reliable water.

We’d love for you to join this world-changing group committed to sustainability.

The most impactful way to continue your support of Rosint Community 3 – and hundreds of other places just like this – is by joining our community of monthly givers.

Your monthly giving will help provide clean water, every month... keeping The Water Promise.


Contributors

Fox Valley Church of Christ
Pine City Baptist Church
HCA Healthcare Employee Match
Artur J Gallagher Foundation
Lebrusan Studio
Bounce Treatment Services
VMware Foundation
Rose of Sharon Family Christian Center
Christina's Campaign for Water
61 individual donor(s)