The situation:
Sabi Mala is a section of Makonkodai Village, which is located in in the Rural District in the Western Area of Sierra Leone. The village lies approximately forty miles east of Freetown.
Since the onset of the Corona pandemic, water demand has increased because everyone has to wash their hands often. This has made the community people come to the stream more often than before due to this high water demand, but the stream they rely on cannot give them clean water, so the effectiveness of the community people’s hand washing – and consequently their steps to prevent COVID-19 – are compromised.
Consuming this swamp water leads to many individuals getting sick, thus affecting the workforce and children’s ability to attend school. Money has to be spent on medical expenses to treat these water-related illnesses, which would have otherwise been utilized to improve the living standards of the spring users.
Women have to wake up very early in the morning to try to fetch water before it inevitably gets dirtier as the day goes on and more people fetch it. Starting to fetch water as early as 6:00 am is also essential if they want to collect enough water for their morning needs and still have time for other engagements such as their farming or house chores. Waiting their turn to collect water, however, always has to take precedence over anything else they might want to do.
The solution:
Makonkodai village has an estimated population of 1,100 people. W4W is establishing a total of 4 wells across the various sections of Makonkodai Village. One of these sections, Sabi Mala, is home to 310 people.
For 550$ Festissimo.dk has donated a hand drilled borehole and a closed well with a SL handpump made from locally available materials by W4W’s Sierra Leonean partner ESSL whom have drilled more than 400 wells of the type with success. The population of Sabi Mala now have a clean water well available for public use. The project was completed in December 2020.
