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Voices from the Field: Team Eric (Fellow Alums, Brigid & Caroline)

Posted on June 30, 2013June 30, 2013 by samreilley

We’re so excited to be back in Ghana! Since we are returning to the fellowship program, our team consists of just the two alums and our amazing translator, Eric. After saying goodbye to the other fellows and translators, we arrived in Salaga on Tuesday with the rest of the team. Our first visit to our village, Kasawuripe, on Wednesday was a success as we met with the chief and planned to return the next day for a village meeting. We were thrilled to present the CWS model to the community and they were enthusiastic about partnering with us. Today we began constructing the treatment center and brought a movable metal polytank stand to the village so that they can move the polytank to their alternative water source in the months when their dugout dries out. The community has a great school and we especially look forward to educating all the kids on the importance of clean water and playing the CWS healthy habits game and other fun activities to encourage to drink healthy water. Tomorrow we’ll begin training the women and distributing the safe storage containers and we hope to have our opening day on Wednesday! After spending just a couple days beginning the project and playing with the kids of the village we’re so excited to be spending the next week opening the water business in Kasawuripe!

-Brigid & Caroline

Voices from the Field: Team Nestor (Angie, Ethan, Kirsten & Sarah)

Posted on June 28, 2013June 29, 2013 by samreilley

Our team consists of Angie, Kirsten, Ethan, Sarah and our translator, Nestor. We’ve been working in the village of Gundaa, about an hour west of Tamale. Our village has about 40 households, divided into New Gundaa and Old Gundaa. Their current source of drinking water is a dugout that is about half a mile from Old Gundaa (the center of the village).

The first day we visited Gundaa, we met with the chief, sub-chiefs, and elders to pitch the idea of a CWS Water Treatment Facility. They were totally onboard, super excited, and extremely thankful! The chief acknowledged that the dirty dugout water they had been drinking was making them sick. He said, “From now on, we will only be drinking clean water!” When we explained we would be working with them over the next two weeks, they even offered to build us our own hut. We organized a community meeting for the following afternoon, so that all of the women in the village could attend after spending the day in the farm (puni). There were over 100 people in attendance.

Angie and Nestor presenting the results of the 3M bacteria test to the village at the community meeting.

Our community meeting began with a prayer for a good meeting, led by the assemblyman. BAM! A table that many people were sitting on fell to the ground. Luckily no one was hurt and the assemblyman joked that the prayer hadn’t reached the sky yet. We each took turns explaining parts of the CWS concept and the work we would be doing. Everyone at the meeting was really excited and loved to see the visuals we brought with us (bacteria tests, a safe storage container, and our Fellow handbooks). At the end of the meeting, the community began to sing a song that involved the women clapping, singing, and yodeling. They sang us two songs – the first was a song of appreciation and the second represented the idea of “united we stand, divided we fall”.

The team clapping along with the women of the village during the appreciation song.

Tomorrow we’ll start building the polytank stand that will be near the dugout under the shade of a tree. We’re super excited to start tomorrow and we can’t wait!

Voices from the field: Team Shak (Jacob, Hailey, Eda & Victoria)

Posted on June 26, 2013April 29, 2015 by samreilley

Their extremely turbid dugout — Vogyili’s extremely turbid dugout

Anula from Tamale!

Team Shak just got back from Day 1 of building the Water Treatment Center. Yesterday was our first day in Vogyili, a village about one hour away from GILLBT. We love riding in Shak’s open air Jeep, even though we have to stop to reattach the gearshift now and then, it’s a great time on the open road! Jacob taught us a Vermonter/Kansan game called “My Cow” that we play often in transit. Our meeting with the chief went really well. We gathered around a shady tree and explained who we were, what CWS does, and how important is it to have the community on board because they will be running the treatment center once we leave! The chief was very enthusiastic, knowledgeable about the water source, and had a sweet green velvet hat. He brought out a can full of brown dugout water and told us how people get sick all the time from drinking the contaminated water. We ran a 3M test on the Vogyili’s dugout water and found that it was positive for E. coli.

Victoria giving a thumbs up to getting all the supplies there to start to build!

Building the first layer of the Water Treatment Center was lots of fun! The chief even came down to see how the building was going and tons of kids gathered around, helping carry sand, cement blocks, and water. The kids also loved looking at the pictures of other centers in our Fellowship Manual. It was therapeutic to smear wet concrete on the blocks with our hands. The blocks will dry overnight and tomorrow we’ll shellac the whole thing with more concrete—then it will be all ready to support the Polytank!

Building Treatment Center Day 1 Complete!!

We tried our best to communicate in Dagbani, but we’re still learning. We’ve pretty much mastered the greeting, which consists of “Despa” (good morning) followed by a series of “Naaa”s, which affirm that you had a good sleep, your family is well, our marriages are thriving (none of us is married), all of our children are healthy (we have no children), and your work is secure. We use lots of hand signals, which worked successfully for asking the kids about their names, school, and pigs. They chased the piglets for us and caught one, but we had them drop it once the Momma Pig began to charge. Can’t wait for more time in the village!

-Victoria, Hailey, Eda & Jacob

Salaga fellows are off!

Posted on June 25, 2013June 27, 2013 by samreilley

Top Row: Peter, Caroline, Brigid, Lilly, Taylor, Carole Anne & Eric. Bottom Row: Kate & Kathryn

First visit to the villages!

Posted on June 24, 2013June 27, 2013 by samreilley

With presentations complete, all fellows were more than ready to get out there and see it all in place! The fellows were headed out to see two communities (Sam took a group to see Chani & Gbung and Kate another to Wongbong & Nekpegu). They were greeted with lots of “Despa”s (“Good Morning” in Dugbani) and smiling faces.

The fellows were able to see the water treatment centers, the communities dugouts, meet some the women entrepreneurs and some even were able to talk with the village chief.

Once returning from the their village visits, the fellows were able to see the alum in action on their samples of dugout water collected from the field. Afterwards, we went through some mock household monitoring to prepare the fellows to conduct monitoring the following day. The fellows then broke out into their teams to practice with their translators the flow of conversation.

We finished the evening at a fellow favorite, Mike’s, to chow down on some delicious pizza!

Above: TJ’s Team (Jhanel, Bryan, Maxine and Casey) making some alum balls! Below: Everyone out to dinner at Mike’s!

Day 2 Success!

Posted on June 22, 2013June 22, 2013 by communitywatersolutions

We just finished up another fantastic day of orientation here in Tamale! Sam and Kate started off the morning by giving the final orientation presentations about water-related disease, water treatment, and the Community Water Solutions’ model.

Kate teaching the fellows about water treatment

After a couple hours of sitting, listening, and learning, the Fellows got outside and and moving around during another round of team-building exercises. We started with the infamous “spiderweb.” The Fellows had to get everyone from one side of the “web” to the other without touching the rope. Each hole in the web could only be used twice. The Fellows did an awesome job and got everyone to the other side in just over an hour. It wasn’t easy, but they rose to the challenge and had a great time!

Bryant attempts the spiderweb first. Be care not to touch the rope!

We finished off the morning with one final team exercise: The Senses Game. The Fellows’ competitive spirit definitely came out a little during this game – it was hilarious!

Maxine rushes after ball after Sam accidentally dropped it from the hiding spot in the tree!

Carole Anne and Casey searching through the trees for the ball. They had to rely on their teammates to send them in the right direction!

We started off the afternoon with a presentation by the CWS field staff (Shak, Peter, Wahab and Amin) who spoke about CWS’ long-term monitoring program. These guys are in charge of monitoring all of our communities throughout the year and now that we are in 49 villages, it’s quite the task! This was the first year that our field staff put together a powerpoint and formally spoke about the work that they do after the Fellows leave Ghana. They did an awesome job!

Wahan explains how CWS analyzes our monitoring data by showing the Fellows a graph of our monitoring results from April 2013.

Sharifa teaching Lucas, Stephanie, Sandra, and Katie some basic Dagboni greetings.

Amin explains how CWS identifies new partner villages.

After the presentation everyone broke into their teams and practiced Dagboni with their translators. Dagboni is the local language spoken in the villages in Northern Ghana. Its a very difficult language to pick up, but our translators did a great job teaching their teams some basic greetings.

Shak teaching his team Dagboni, the tribal language spoken in most of the villages in Nothern Region Ghana

We finished off the day with “healthy habits tag” a game that the Fellows will teach the school children in their village as a way to talk about good hygiene practices. It was a fun way to finish off a long but awesome 2nd day in Tamale!

And the Tamale venture begins…

Posted on June 21, 2013June 21, 2013 by samreilley

After a 13 hour bus ride and a 4:30am arrival, fellows were safe, sound and exhausted! We delayed the start of fellowship program activities until the afternoon and allowed everyone to sleep in. The afternoon started with some always needed name games. Right after we jumped into the presentations; starting off “Ghana 101” and the “Global Water Crisis.”

After a break for lunch, we all got back together, where fellows were put into teams and sent off on a scavenger hunt!

2013 Summer Fellows before running off around Tamale on their Scavenger Hunt!!

Welcome to Ghana Summer Fellows!

Posted on June 19, 2013June 19, 2013 by communitywatersolutions

Its official: the 2013 Summer Fellowship Program has begun! As of tonight, 23 of our 24 Fellows have arrived safely in Accra and Stephanie, our final group member to arrive, is just one flight away!

Some of our 2013 Summer Fellows hanging out at the hotel in Accra. They will all head up to Tamale tomorrow! (By the time everyone got in from the airport it was a little dark! Better pictures to come!)

Once Stephanie arrives tomorrow afternoon, she’ll hop on the bus with the rest of the Fellows (Angela, Dori, Sandra, Brigid, Carole-Anne, Lilly, Taylor, Bryan, Bryant, Caroline, Casey, Hailey, Eda, Ethan, Jacob, Jhanel, Katie, Lucas, Kirsten, Maxine, Renee, Sarah, & Victoria) and our CWS staff (Sam, Shak & Peter) and head up to Tamale. This group has traveled from ALL over to get to Ghana. Some have been traveling for over two days already! We can’t wait for them to arrive in Tamale and get settled for the next few weeks!

After a few days of orientation in Tamale, I’ll be bringing, Brigid, Caroline, Carole-Anne, Lilly and Taylor to our new office in Salaga where we’ll kick off our first Fellowship Program in this new-to-us region. Thank you again to all of our Indiegogo donors who helped to make our Salaga expansion a reality. We are so excited to get started!

Stay tuned for more updates!

-Kate

CWS Polytank Stands: Cement or Metal?

Posted on June 3, 2013June 3, 2013 by admin

Amin checks the water level of the polytank. This is a typical CWS water treatment center with cement stand.

Wahab checks the water levels of the polytank in Gariezegu. This is a center that uses a metal stand.

While preparations for the summer fellowship program are underway, we’re still focused on monitoring at the CWS Tamale office until the fellows get here. Tamale is in between seasons. It has been raining but the rainy season is not in full swing just yet. The CWS field staff is prepping our 49 villages for the seasonal transitions that will take place during the fellowship program when they will be given less attention. Full time field staffer, Amin, will be monitoring the communities while the other field staff will be working as translators for the fellows.

One way we’re prepping the communities is by bringing the entrepreneurs metal polytank stands. If you read my post on building polytank stands a few months ago, then you already have an idea of what I’m talking about. Several CWS partnership communities drink from multiple water sources throughout the year. As the rains come, the women, who are responsible for collecting water in the Dagomba culture, opt for fetching water from water sources that are closer to home. In some villages that might mean going to a closer dugout that only fills with water when it rains. In others, it might mean drinking from hand dug wells in the community or drinking from a stream that is created during the rainy season.

The path to Gariezegu’s center floods when the rains start, which is why the community now uses a metal polytank stand to bring their center to town. The entrepreneurs treat and sell well water and rainwater throughout the rainy season.

The metal polytank in Gariezegu that inspired the new CWS metal polytank stand!

We’re realizing on the monitoring side that this is a common trend and that we need to have realistic expectations for the entrepreneurs running the centers. It would be hard for the women to treat and sell water at a dugout where the path is flooded and where nobody goes to get water for three months out of the year. Initially, CWS planned on building cement polytank stands at the various locations from which people collect water. But we were inspired by the metal polytank stand that Gariezegu used last rainy season to bring their water treatment center to town to treat well water.

The metal stand can be moved around, which is ideal for villages that collect water from different sources. Instead of building multiple stands, the community can move their center to wherever it is they are getting water. West Africa Reginal Director, Kathryn Padget, and Project Manager, Peter Biyam, got in touch with a welder and showed him a diagram of what the metal polytank stand should look like. The welder was able to make the polytank stand out of metal piping and so the metal stand was created!

CWS entrepreneur, Anatu, stands with Kpanayili’s new metal polytank stand located next to their closer dugout that is only full of water during the rainy season.

CWS does not anticipate using these metal stands in every community or using these stands first thing in implementation. The cement polytank stands are a good fit for communities that only drink from one water source year round because they are so durable and because they can’t be moved! The metal polytank stands will only be added to communities that will need to move their centers to other water points. So far, CWS has brought metal stands to Gbandu and Kpanayili. We are hoping to get metal stands out to Libi, Tindan II, Kpalbusi, Jarayili and Tacpuli before the fellowship program. As of now, we’re just waiting on the welder!

– Brianán