Kulafai Rashideen Primary School

September, 2017: Kulafai Rashideen Primary School Project Complete

Kulafai Rashideen Primary School in Gbainty Bunlor, Sierra Leone now has a well that provides clean water throughout the year, thanks to your donation! Hundreds of students and community members no longer have to go to the swamp and then suffer the dangerous effects of drinking dirty water. Hygiene and sanitation training was also conducted, which focused on healthy practices such as washing hands and using latrines. This water and new knowledge give the school and community a great foothold in eliminating water and sanitation-related illness. Please enjoy this update detailing all of the work that was done at Kulafai Rashideen Primary School, and be sure to check out the tons of new pictures!

Thank You for unlocking potential for these students and their families. You made clean water a reality, and now you have a chance to make sure it keeps flowing. Join our team of monthly donors and help us, our caretakers, and our mechanics maintain this well and hundreds of other projects!

Project Result: New Knowledge

We worked closely with Headmistress Mafereh Bangura to organize her students to attend hygiene and sanitation training. We also invited all of the teachers and also the village elders. The headmistress set aside the sixth grade classroom, since it's the largest and most ventilated of all the rooms there.

In light of it being the days before school holiday during final exams, we were pleasantly surprised to have drawn 80% of everyone invited. Out of the six teachers, four came to help and also learn for themselves.

The first session, we noticed that a huge number of students were barefoot, which introduces them to different complications, including parasites! We urged them to start wearing shoes for these reasons, since shoes are the only barrier between them and skin complications. We were happy to notice that the following day, all of those students returned with their shoes on - the issue here isn't that they couldn't afford shoes, but that they didn't realize the importance of wearing them.

This second day of training is also when we moved out of the school classroom to the community, where we invited all household to join us as we learned about important hygiene and sanitation facts. Everyone appreciated this so much, feeling happy that they were important enough to invite! Mr. Alimamy Kamara has a child who attends the school, so he was happy to join us and learn the same material. He said, "I am very happy for this training because our kids are far away from hygiene; in the morning hours after doing their housework, they just put on their uniforms without taking their bath nor brush their teeth before going to school!"

Some of the topics covered during training were as follows:

– How to wash hands, and how to build a hand-washing station from a jerrycan, string, sticks, and netting

– Good and bad hygiene practices

– Dish racks and how to build them

– Keeping animals under control

– Management and maintenance of the hand pump

Diagrams portraying unhealthy practices such as walking barefoot, open defecation, outdoor urination, and eating with unwashed hands were all shown and discussed in groups. Students participated in role-plays and dramas, too!

Demonstrating how to set up and use a mosquito net. These are handed out for free from the government, but people aren't taught why or how to use them.

The first time we arrived at this school, there were no hand-washing stations. After the students had learned to make tippy taps, they had set them up all around school grounds. There wasn't a dish rack for students to dry their drinking cups, but since the school was about to shut down for break, students promised to have one built when they return. The community members who attended the session on dish racks built them immediately after the training. It was encouraging to see this positive response!

Students holding up pictures of good and bad hygiene behaviors to encourage discussions.

Headmistress Bangura told us "Really these hygiene training lessons have become as good to the pupils as well as for us as teachers. The reason for this is that we have already started seeing some changes in the attitude of some pupils. Some who used to come to school barefooted are now putting on shoes. When coming to school, their teeth are now taking care of, they have get in to the habit of taking their showers every morning before coming to school. We have the confidence that these changes will take place in the whole community and beyond. We thank you all and hope that you will make future visit as a way of follow up."

Headmistress Bangura

Project Result: A Reliable Water Well

The school allowed our drill team to use a classroom for lodging throughout construction. This was greatly appreciated because it is starting to rain every night.

We spearheaded a new method of converting the bottom of a hand-dug well into a borehole. When we started this process, the well was at 48 feet with no water.

The team first set up the tripod and pulley over the well. Normally, the team would go down inside the well to drill it deeper, but it was decided to drill this well differently - The team worked from ground level here. First, they installed 6″ PVC casing through the hatch cover down to the bottom of the well. This ensured that the drilling began straight and also kept the hole from collapsing. They connected the bucket auger drill bit to the drilling rod and lowered it into the well, continuing to add more drill rods until they hit the bottom. Each drill rod is 18 feet in length and every time the team emptied the bucket auger, they had to reverse the process by disconnecting the rods until the drill bit could be emptied. This method was more labor-intensive, but working from the top was much safer in this circumstance. There are different drill bits for different conditions, a special bit just for clay, one for sand, one for rocks and one combination bit for all three conditions.

This is hard work!

The team encountered sand as they drilled, which was a welcome site because water flows freely through sand, and it's also easier to drill through. They continued to hit sand until 72 feet, where there was clay. They started to pull some black clay too, which negatively affects water quality - so the final call was to stop before the black clay at 72 feet.

18 feet of 4¼" casing was slotted for screen and lowered down inside the temporary casing from 52 to 70 feet. Five buckets of filter pack were poured in between the two casings after which the team could remove the larger temporary casing.

Hoisting out the temporary casing.

Iron rods were cemented in the well lining and attached to the casing to support the weight of the PVC and keep it straight from bottom to top. The team welded a collar into the pump base to help support the casing.

The well was developed by bailing; two men bailed by hand for four days to ensure proper development. The well could then be tested by installing a submersible pump at 60 feet and using it for one hour. The team measured the discharge, which was 650 gallons. The static water level didn’t change from 47 feet! This translates to 40 liters per minute, confirming that the water will recharge fast enough to always serve the school.

Community members gather around with their containers during the yield test.

With this success, we could rebuild a new walled well pad and install the new stainless steel hand-pump.

Mr. Bai Kamara reflected on this huge change and what it means for his community:

"The distance from the school to the water source had been a very big problem not only for us as grown ups, but also the children. Getting to the swamp to fetch water every morning not only made them feel uncomfortable but also caused lateness on their part. Often times, their uniforms got wet, they got tired because of the long distances covered and that would make some not even go to school except the next day. Vomiting and frequent diarrhea was always observed among the pupils. Initially, we were confused about the cause of their frequent vomiting and stool, but we later realized that the cause for their sickness was drinking from the unsafe swampy water. But thankfully the rehabilitation of this new safe water source will become a real help for the school and entire community. We are quite sure and pray that we will never go to the swamp again to fetch water because of this safe drinking water source in our community. We are grateful for this well, and thank you all for your effort!"

This well was bone dry just two weeks ago. Incredible!

Everyone came together to celebrate how this well has been revived and is now yielding a surplus of clean water. The chief, Pa Kabakamara came to join all of the students at their well. There were also teachers and community members there. The chief and many teachers stepped forward to share what this huge improvement will mean for them, as well as many students. The student body president, Emma, said "I am happy for such a development in our school. I have also benefited so much from the hygiene training. It has helped me to get into the habit of using soap and water after using toilet, a practice that I have not been used to. Really I am very much grateful to the hygiene team." Our hygiene team also summarized what everyone learned during training, encouraging them to build new hygiene and sanitation practice into their daily lives.

During this celebration, people surrounded the well and waited their turn for a sip of clean water. In conclusion, the chief, chairman of the school board, and a teacher stood next to our team and received the official "handing over" of this well into their hands. While we will stand beside the school and community to ensure their well serves them for a long time, we want these people to feel responsible for this well's management and maintenance. When we arrive to make any repairs, we expect them to be able to use collected funds to make payment. To symbolize this handing over, we filled a cup at the pump and handed it over from our team to theirs.

August, 2017: Kulafai Rashideen Primary School Project Underway

Kulafai Rashideen Primary School in Sierra Leone will soon have a source of safe, clean water because of your donation! A well that is dry for almost half of every year is being deepened, and the students, teachers, and parents will receive training in sanitation and hygiene. Imagine the difference these resources will make for this school and their community!

We just posted an initial report from our partner in the field including an introduction to the community, maps, and pictures. We’ll keep you updated as the work progresses.

Thank You for caring for the thirsty!