By KATHLEEN MCDONALD | Project Helper
“We Are In School Now!” - VILLAGE OF SISENE.
Over 700 girls and boys are attending school in Sisene, more than double the number attending before the rainwater catchment basin was built! Girls can attend school because they must no longer walk three hours a day to find water for their families. After construction of the rainwater catchment in Sisene, gardening began being practiced on a large scale and has become permanent. Animal husbandry, fishing, development of small businesses, markets three times each week are now standard.
A new rainwater catchment basin serving 2,000 village residents costs less than $50 per person. Providing water year round is the key to success. Global Giving makes it easy to donate and to share, providing great benefit to the villagers of Burkina Faso.
Self-Help Enables Villagers
During the last quarter, field visits by the GWGL team have generated information about family structure, education, health, and economic activities in villages wanting a new rainwater catchment basin. Data was also collected on physical and institutional terrain and structures; farming methods; and GPS coordinates for using satellite imagery. Villagers spoke about their individual needs with respect to water and how hard each one is willing to work to have a new basin.
VILLAGE OF RAMONGOKAMSI. Over three-hundred residents of RamongoKamsi attended January meetings to seek assistance in building a new rainwater catchment basin. Seeing the success in Sisene has them eager to start building now. According to the President of the Community Association, RamongoKamsi had a water retention pond built by the population itself, but the dam collapsed, and for over ten years, there has been little water. Without water year round, life is much more difficult. The leader of the Women’s Agriculture Cooperative spoke on behalf of her group and shared: “If you help us build a basin, there will be a complete change. There will be no out-migration and there will be many improvements.”
An entire agriculturally based village can become healthier and economically self-sufficient through sustainable community development that a single rainwater catchment basin makes possible. Give Water Give Life (GWGL) Project has a fine tuned product that requires each basin designed: meet local conditions; include local villagers’ leadership and participation; clay-based (to help raise the water table); emergency spillway; solar-powered irrigation system; solar-powered filtration system; satellite imagery for optimum location placement; and data collection on overall health and nutrition.
Global Giving donors are making it possible to build another basin. One basin costs $85,000 which is less than $50 per person served in a village. However, we have raised $20,000 so far. We need your suggestions on how to make the positive impacts of a rainwater catchment basin better understood. Should we focus on raising enough money for each of the components of the basin first? Rather than the total costs? Please, your help is very much needed and appreciated.
Thank You!
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