Rehabilitation Project
This well rehabilitation project is part of the Foo Foo Water, Huntingdon Primary School School Zone. It will be located at a health clinic.
The team has visited the well site and determined that this project will require deepening before they can attach a new well pump.
Recent severe droughts in the area have caused most of the wells we are now encountering to require this deepening. Without it, the wells are at risk of drying up later in the year. This has caused very long delays in our program here, though we're glad that progress is still being made.
The well project is in one of the communities surrounding the Foo Foo Water, Huntingdon Primary School. Students at this school live in the this community. Once the well projects are completed, these students will have access to clean, safe water at their school and at home. The students are also being trained how to teach their fellow community members about proper hygiene.
Upon completion of the project, our implementing partner reported...
"When the team arrived, community members were utilizing a swamp located one kilometer away from the community, and because of this, residents were suffering from cholera, typhoid, malaria, diarrhea and severe dehydration. The community's practice of informal defecation also greatly contributes to the spread of disease in the area and it is hoped that after hygiene education, this practice will be stopped. During the team's stay, community members assisted the team with the water project whenever possible, provided food for the drill team and provided security over the water project during the night. The majority of community members sustain a living by farming, petty trading, harvesting palm wine and producing salt. The nearest school is located .1 of a kilometer away from the community whose students, teachers and administrative personnel all have access to the new, safe water source. Before leaving the community, the team provided community member, Ramatu Fofanah, with a contact number in case their well were to fall into disrepair, become subject to vandalism or theft.
The team had an opportunity to meet with forty year old community member and local farmer, Lamin Kanu, who stated, 'It is quite different between the old pump and the new pump because the old pump had rusted pipes while the new pump has rubber pipes. The water from the swamp where we had been getting our water, since the well went dry, was full of disease. The rehabilitated well has pure water and the new hand pump is fine.'
This well is in the catchment area for Foo Foo Water and Huntingdon Primary School. There were 120 adults and 49 children who attended the hygiene training. There were 105 ORS spoons distributed, and the training was well organized. During the hygiene education, the team addressed the following principle issues: Disease transmission, Germs, Hand Washing- proper techniques and water saving methods, Healthy Unhealthy Communities, Oral Rehydration Solution, Proper care of the pump, Keeping the water clean, Good-bad hygiene behaviors and Disease Transmission Stories. The team will return to this village with the Child Health Club to do more sensitization about good hygiene and the need for all houses to have a toilet, either latrine or native toilet."
