Blog

Meet Mr. Muda and His Family

For a year now at Saha, we’ve been using remote calling to water business entrepreneurs and customers to enable Saha to keep in touch while avoid direct contact due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  This technique gives Saha opportunity to listen to success stories, learn about problems that need immediate attention and continue education on COVID-19. During a routine phone call, field officer Amin Bangaham learned that Mr. Muda has been an active customer and strong advocate for the Saha water business in his community of Zowu.

The Muda family at their home in Zowu

 

Entrepreneurs in Zowu (most closely pronounced “Zoh”), in Central Gonja, opened their water business in 2018.  Since day one, Mr. Muda was glad to have an option other than the dugout water for his family to drink.  He lives with with wife and children as well as his elderly father.  His wife, Mrs. Muda, refills the family’s safe storage containers whenever they are empty.  Mr. Muda said that at first, the children and his wife were reluctant to drink the new water, but over time they’ve come to enjoy it even more than he does!  He told Bangaham that they used to go to the community health center every month to get drugs due to someone in his household experiencing diarrhea, but since they’ve been drinking the clean water from the Saha business, it has been almost an entire year since he’s had to visit the hospital.  He attributes this change to the drinking water, since he learned in the very first community meeting before the business opened that drinking the dugout water causes diarrhea.

Mr. Muda is the head of one of 62 households in his community, and Zowu is one of 246 Saha water businesses.  Saha water businesses are impacting over 100,000 people just like Mr. Muda every day.

 

 

2019 Global Leadership Program Orientation

All 20 of our Summer 2019 Field Representatives safely arrived in Tamale this week!  In just a few short days, they’ve had a crash course in the global water crisis and water-related diseases, as well as the Saha model for intervention.

The teams joined Rhiana and Simply in the field with their first visits to current Saha villages of Dalibila and Laligu.  They were able to see working centers, meet some of our women entrepreneurs.  Mma Ayishetu in Dalibila gave some great advice: “be patient with the women you are working with, and teach them very well how to run the business, and they will be very patient with you and accept you.”

Team Jude, Team Nestor, and Team Kamil in Dalibila with Mma Ayishetu, Mma Ayi, and some friends.

In the afternoon, the teams learned how to use alum, a common coagulation-flocculation product, to remove particles from the water.  Then they learned how Saha monitors our current communities, and practiced having curious conversations with their translators.

Team Nestor making alum balls
Asita teaching the proper alum ball technique

Today, the teams were on their own for the first time in current Saha communities of Zowu, Mile 40, Libi, Nangbagu, and Tibugu, practicing monitoring, speaking with current entrepreneurs for advice, and learning more about how the Saha model works.  Tomorrow it’s off to their new communities for the first time! Good luck!