By Jeremy Mak | Gambia Lifewater Project Managing Director
Every day, we’re working hard to continue the fight against clean water insecurity in rural Gambia. Here’s an update of our recent activities to increase or restore clean water access in three communities.
With Global Giving support, we just installed a new Bluepump at the District Health Center in Dankunku. I personally lived next to and worked in this clinic during my Peace Corps service years ago. Even though it’s not even 15 years old, the center looks much older. Water does not flow through the broken pipes and faucets, and the torn window screens, abandoned ceiling fans, bare shelves, and peeling paint leave much to be desired. But when a woman is about to give birth or when a child suffers from trauma, malaria or dysentery, this is where they go. There is no other health facility for miles.
The clinic’s solar water system broke long ago, and while the hospital has managed to tap into the village’s larger borehole system, it sometimes shuts down and is turned off at night. This forces medical staff, as well as patients and their family members—especially those who spend the night—to rely on handpumps scattered throughout the village, or to beg households for access to stored water, the latter of which might not always be clean and safe to use in hospital settings.
The well immediately in front of the clinic has two handpumps, one that we previously fixed in 2012, and the other, which has fallen into disrepair. We replaced this broken one with a robust and long-lasting Bluepump to give the clinic and village more reliable access to clean water, directly benefiting more than 2,000 people in Dankunku, and indirectly benefiting the 26 surrounding villages that depend on the health center for primary medical care. You can see videos of this repair BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER. Clean water returns!
With support from Gamrupa Danmark, we also distributed Sawyer household water filters for two remote, rural villages previously drinking directly from open, dirty wells. We taught all female heads of households, those traditionally responsible for collecting water, how to assemble, maintain, and clean the filters. Each filter can provide clean drinking water for a household for DECADES. Modikaya, a community of 8 compounds and 103 people, had a pump which failed on them, forcing them to rely on THIS traditional open well for years. You can see our distribution of filters restoring clean water to the community HERE.
Lastly, before receiving Sawyer filters HERE, Sinchu Al-Haggi, a village of 9 compounds and 121 residents relied exclusively on drinking straight from THESE 2 open and dirty wells. This is the first time EVER that clean water has reached this village.
Thanks again to your stellar support. We couldn’t have done it without you. Let's continue the fight to make waterborne diseases HISTORY.
Best wishes,
Jeremy Mak
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