This week we spent some time monitoring in Gidanturu. Its always so fun to see people using their safe storage containers in their homes. We were very excited about our monitoring results and are so proud of Birami and Mariam, who have been doing an excellent job working at the water treatment center!
Its only Tuesday, but our team has been so busy this week it feels like it should be Friday! We spent Sunday and Monday passing out safe storage containers to every family in Gidanturu, and training Mariam and Bariami (sp?), the two women who were nominated by their community to run the CWS water business. Then today, we opened for business! Over 90% of the village showed up to buy water, and we even saw a few more people headed to the center as we were leaving (unfortunately we had run out of water due to a leaky polytank, so we closed before those people were able to fetch. Have no worries, the polytank is fixed and more water will be ready tomorrow!) A big THANK YOU to Colleen and Jeff Clopeck for sponsoring this water business!
Gidanturu is home to many fun animals! They actually have crocodiles in their dugout and pet monkeys!
On our way home from Gidanturu we passed an overturned Coke truck – the road was COVERED in broken glass. I had to take a pic!
I am excited to announce that we have started setting up our SIXTH water business in the village of Gidanturu! This water business is sponsored by Colleen and Jeff Clopeck, who have been incredible CWS supporters over the past 1.5 years!
Gidanturu is located on the Salaga Rd (the same road as Jarigu, Cheko, Nyamaliga, and Gbong) about 90 minutes outside of Tamale. Before purchasing the truck, it would have been impossible for us to even consider a village this far away – the taxi fees would have been astronomical and the Salaga road turns to dirt shortly after passing Gbong which makes it very difficult to drive on without 4 wheel drive. This village is the home to ~650-700 people who were desperately in need of safe drinking water, so we are so glad that we have the truck and are able to partner with them!
We are planning to open the water business early next week. Here are some pictures from the past few days:
During our first visit to Gidanturu I noticed that many of the children were wearing funny looking hats. After looking closely, I noticed that the children were raising money for Haiti at their school! I thought that this was SO amazing! Back home, we have things like crowdfunding platforms which make raising money on a large scale so easy, and yet this tiny village in rural Ghana – that we have a hard time reaching in our 4 wheel-drive truck, where people live on less than $1 per day, were also raising money for Haiti! How cool is that?! (and they weren’t just wearing the hats, they were really taking donations!)
CWS is excited to announce our first team of Summer Fellows! Congratulations to Molly Barrett, Sarah Britz, Amaia Noguera, Ben Powell, and James Little
This June, the Fellows will be traveling to Ghana were they will learn about the global water crisis and implement a CWS water business in a rural village. Interested in supporting their trip? Check out Molly, Ben, or Sarah‘s fundraising pages!!
In addition to helping Community Water Solutions provide clean water for rural villages in Ghana, your donations help us pay our wonderful Ghanaian staff, who do everything from translating to implementing water business on their own. Last week was very exciting for Peter, our project manager, because he had finally saved up enough money to purchase a plot of land. Peter is the first person in his family to own land – his parents and grandparents have always rented homes in town. He is planning to eventually build a compound on this plot where his whole extended family can live.
Peter has been working very hard for CWS over the past 15 months and has been very responsible – saving his salary little by little. He did not tell his family about his plan to purchase land, and surprised them last Wednesday by driving them out to his plot and showing them his deed! His parents were so proud of him and so are we!
This is just one example of how your donations can really make a difference in the lives of people in Ghana. Thank you so much for your support thus far!!
If you are interested in making a donation, please visit www.communitywatersolutions.org/support.html