Kasonga is an urban center with a ton of concrete buildings on either side of busy streets. It's noisy, particularly when the kids are out of school. The space between buildings doesn't leave much space for cultivation, so there isn't much green here.
The elders of Kasongha set aside land for a clinic to be built years before its establishment. In 2006, someone finally pushed for the funding of this clinic because of a steady increase in Kasongha's population. In 2007, his efforts resulted in what's seen here today. It employs three nurses who oversee four beds and an examination room.
Water
The clinic gets their water from a stream. The road to this water source is not long, but it becomes slippery and dangerous during the rainy months.
This water is used for everything from doing laundry to drinking. Even wild animals come and go, relying on this open water source. People and animals alike wade right in to the water for collection and drinking.
This wouldn't be the case if the well at the health clinic had water all the time.
Staff there say it worked for years, but the extreme weather caused the water table to decrease. There are certain months people can be sure water will come from the pump, but they need a reliable clean water source that won't only work when the weather is right. It is extremely important that these nurses have clean water to use in their treatment of patients.
Sanitation
"This is a health center and is expected to take the lead in cleanliness. If we compromise sanitation, how are we going to advise the patients about it?" Nurse Aminata Kamara said.
"I can say that our state of hygiene and sanitation is above expected level and I am very pleased with it."
We can't deny that the clinic is well-sanitized. There are hand-washing stations everywhere, along with soap. It's the surrounding community that we'll focus on training, for many lack latrines and other basic facilities they need to live a healthy life.
Here's what we're going to do about:
Training
There will be hygiene and sanitation training sessions offered to community members and clinic staff for three days in a row.
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. Pictures will be used to teach the community how to discern between healthy and unhealthy hygiene and sanitation practices.
These trainings will also strengthen the water user committee that manages and maintains this well. They enforce proper behavior and report to us whenever they need our help solving a serious problem, like a pump breakdown.
Well Rehabilitation
Since extreme weather has affected this hand-dug at Maternal Child Health Post, we will be converting it to a borehole. Our drill team will be hand-drilling it much deeper! Once they've struck more than enough water, they'll build a new well pad and install a stainless steel India MkII pump.
This clean water will not only supply the clinic and its patients during the day, but will be open for its neighboring community members during the night hours, too.
This project is a part of our shared program with Mariatu’s Hope. Our team is pleased to provide the reports for this project (formatted and edited for readability) thanks to the hard work of our friends in Sierra Leone.
