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!
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!
The 2013 Summer Fellowship Program is just 3 short weeks away and I could not be more excited! While our team in Ghana works hard to finish up the last minute preparations, here in the States Sam and I are putting the final touches on our Fellowship Handbooks, placing last minute orders for lab supplies and finalizing our packing lists. June 19th will be here before we know it and we just can’t wait for our 25 new Fellows to arrive in Ghana!
This morning in Ghana CWS staff loaded Shak’s jeep with safe storage containers for the Summer Fellowship villages!
I am especially excited for this Summer’s program because I am going to be leading our new program in Salaga! it’s been over a year since I was with Fellows in Ghana and that is way too long. Sam has been doing a great job running the Fellowship, so my recent trips to Ghana have been more focused on our expansion. Although planning the CWS expansion has been exciting, I have to admit that over the past year I’ve been a little jealous of Sam. Working with CWS Fellows is so much fun and I’ve really missed it! I love everything about the Fellowship: getting to know everyone during orientation, teaching new people about the water crisis, the awesome discussions during our nightly debriefs, and of course, the Fellows themselves! It is awesome. Caroline, Brigid, Taylor, Lilly, and Carole-Anne – I hope your ready for an enthusiastic leader, because I will be bouncing off the wall with excitement throughout our time together in Salaga!
Summer 2012 – The last time I lead a Fellowship Program. Its been way too long!
As you may be able to tell, the CWS Fellowship Program is awesome! Leading the program is a blast but being a Fellow is even better! This Fall, we’re having our first-ever 2 week program. We know it can be tough to take time off of work and we want everyone to have the chance to come work with us in Ghana!
So, young professionals, friends, family, everyone that’s ever told me that you want to come to Ghana: This Fall is your chance! The program is taking place from October 12th – 26th. Applications are available now so click here and apply now! We will be accepting Fellows on a rolling basis – the earlier you apply, the earlier you can get started fundraising. Learn more here!
When I talk about the CWS Fellowship, its always so exciting to see how many people are interested in the program! Whether it’s talking to my mom who wants to know what it is I am actually doing in Ghana, my brother who is dying to come experience the work first-hand, my cousins in college who are looking for more experience abroad, my aunts who just think traveling to Ghana would be awesome, my friends who are sick of their 9-5 jobs or even the guy I sat next to on the train the other day who was bored of his desk job and looking to go and make some sort of difference. One thing I have noticed in many of these conversations about the Fellowship Program, is that many people wished the trip was two weeks (as opposed to the three and half week program in place). I totally get it, life is busy: work, kids, family, commitments – its hard to drop everything and come to Ghana, even if you really want to!
How are we able to cut the program down to two weeks?
We cut out the bus travel. Everyone will fly into Accra, and then fly up to Tamale! The flights are much more expensive than the bus which is why the cost ($2,950) of the program will not differ from the longer Fellowships.
We will do orientation here in the States! We will have webinars to go over the Orientation portion of the program.
You will be put in to your teams prior to arrival in Ghana.
The program will take place from Oct.12th to Oct.26th and applications will be accepted on a rolling basis. Apply today, hear back from us by the end of the week, coordinate your plans and start fundraising! The earlier you apply the more time you will have to fundraise!
If you have any questions, feel free to email me, Sam at sreilley@communitywatersolutions.org
When it comes to the fellowship program, I get stoked! As the Director of Operations at CWS, a large part of my job is to organize the fellowship programs. For months, we prepare: travelling all over the U.S. to recruit, interviewing applicants, making all appropriate accommodations, interviewing new translators and figuring out potential new villages. When all is in place, we head over to Ghana for 3 weeks empowering woman and in turn, bringing clean drinking water to rural community, which was once without.
We get the most awesome young people (and I mean, I’m not joking, AWESOME!!) from all around the world together to make a lasting difference. The fellows are what makes the “CWS world” go round! They are the pure reason why we are able to do what we do. Without them we are just a team of 8, but with them we become a team 30-48! Power in numbers!
This summer we will be bringing 25 fellows to Ghana. Within a matter of a week, these fellows will become experts in the field. From there they set up a chief meeting, pitch the CWS model, train two woman in the community how to run the CWS business and BAM!!—a community that once was drinking fecally contaminated water is given a clean drinking water source.
Along with the village implementation, fellows are able to provide for us, they also bring the energy! They keep it fresh and bring the spunk! The energy that they have spills, not only into the villages, but onto the CWS Team! They provide us with a fresh prospective, a ton of laughs and an energy that persists long after they leave Ghana!
2013 Summer Fellows we can’t wait to finally meet you in Ghana! ONLY 5 MORE WEEKS AWAY! Lets do this!!
Women fetching water from the remaining water in Jagberin’s dugout, last dry season. This year, Jagberin’s dugout never totally dried up like this. – Photo credit Kathryn Padgett
The rains have come early in Tamale this year. In the Northern Region of Ghana, the dry season usually lasts from October until June and the rainy season usually lasts from June until September. But this year that has not been the case. We received our first rains in Tamale starting in March, which is abnormal for the region. And it has been raining frequently, which makes it seem like the rainy season is in full swing. All over the world, global climate change has altered weather patterns, posing a threat to ecosystems, agriculture, the displacement of persons and access to water. While the cause of these specific rainfall changes in the Northern Region of Ghana is unknown, a recent NASA led study reports that global warming will have a large impact on the world’s precipitation patterns. The study states, “Areas projected to see the most significant increase in heavy rainfall are in the tropical zones around the equator, particularly in the Pacific Ocean and Asian monsoon regions.” Ghana is located in this tropical zone. CWS works in communities that get their water from dugouts or small ponds that fill up with rainwater each rainy season. These early rains have already had an impact on CWS operations in Ghana.
Djelo’s drying dugout in February. Djelo moved their center to a farther dugout, so that the entrepreneurs would have enough water to treat
Every year during the dry season, some CWS communities have to close their water treatment centers because their dugout water runs out. In April of this year, the dugout in Gbateni totally ran dry, while the dugouts in Nekpegu, Tohinaayili, Galinzegu and Jagberin were getting turbid on their way to running dry. Within a week of Gbateni’s dugout drying up, all of these communities received heavy rains. When we went back to Gbateni, Nekpegu, Tohinaayili, Galinzegu and Jagberin the following week, their dugouts were full with water. We had very few center closings due to dugouts drying up this year, which means more months of access to clean water for those communities to which this posed a threat.
Galinzegu’s dugout in January looking very turbid
When the roads start flooding from the rains, the CWS field staff can no longer access the roads to the villages, Buhijaa, Gbateni or Chanaayili. This usually doesn’t happen until June. Starting in April, we were unable to get to Buhijaa and the road to Gbateni was already getting muddy. We’re hoping that the rains hold out for a few weeks so we can prep these villages with aquatabs before the paths are totally impenetrable for the rest of the season.
Memounatu of Buhijaa pumps borehole water into her safe storage container. CWS field staff cannot reach Buhijaa because the road is too flooded. As of the last visit in April, they still had borehole water.
I asked the CWS field staff what they thought about the early rains. Peter said, “It must be climate change, this weather is so strange.” Amin explained it in a different way, “Last year it didn’t rain much so this year the rains came early. That’s just how it is.”
Shak monitored Jabayili and Yakura, two communities implemented in June 2012, and asked the women how their sales were going. Fati and Memouna of Jabayili reported that sales have slowed down, everyone has started to collect rainwater. This is typical community behavior for CWS villages but rainwater collection usually doesn’t start until June. So the entrepreneurs have fewer months of having high center sales this year, since most people opt for collecting rainwater for free over paying for water at the center.
Rainwater collected in a pot for household consumption
Recently during household monitoring in Tindan, Wahab spoke to Arishetu, one of the women who runs the water business in the community. She told him that he would not meet all of the women at home to talk to them about their clean water. Now that it has started raining, everyone will be on their farms planting groundnuts and yams. These crops apparently only need a few rains before you can start planting.
The CWS field staff has noticed that there are less people to meet in the communities for household monitoring. This means coming across empty households and only being able to speak with the children, nursing women or the older people who are staying back from the farms. But the rains have not affected farming schedules beyond groundnuts and yams. It seems like people are holding out on planting corn and other crops until they are sure the rains will last. As rural farmers without access to changing weather pattern data, their farming yields are left to chance, especially with abnormal rains.
With an average of 1-2 rains a week in Tamale, it seems like the rains are here to stay and it’s only the first week in May! So far the early rains have had a positive impact on CWS water treatment centers. Very few centers ran out of water to treat this year. But who knows what future obstacles CWS and the CWS communities will face when struck with changing, unpredictable precipitation patterns.
Our team was completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of people who donated to the campaign, tweeted, emailed, “liked” and shared the link! We are so grateful for your support. Thanks to your help, we were able to raise $18,314 in 5 short weeks! Amazing!
These funds will allow us to finalize our expansion to Salaga in time to host our first two teams of Community Water Solutions Fellows this Summer. The Salaga Fellowship Program will take place from June 19th – July 10th. We will be posting updates on the CWS blog through the entire program so be sure to check back for updates!
Over the next few weeks we will be working on sending out your perks, so be on the lookout for a fun package in the mail from CWS.
This spring, Community Water Solutions’ Executive Director, was invited to speak at Middlebury’s TEDx Conference. The theme of the conference was “The Road Not Taken” and Kate spoke about the changes in her career path that led her to Ghana and then told the story of CWS’ trials in buying a truck in order to reach more areas of Ghana. Check out her inspirational talk below!
Being in Ghana for 10 months now, I have had the chance to see other water NGOs in action. While I have seen some other NGOs doing great work, I have also seen broken borehole pumps and broken or inefficient filters. In the NGO water sector, there is a sustainability problem. According to the January 2011 WASH Sustainability Forum Report (cited below), “Less than five percent of water and sanitation projects are revisited after project conclusion and less than one percent of such projects have any long-term monitoring at all.”
CWS is part of that five percent and one percent of organizations that continue to monitor even after implementation. CWS will not work in a new community unless it has the funding to follow-up and monitor the business for a minimum of 5 years. By follow up and monitor, we mean visiting the newly implemented community once a week for the first 6 months of access and then at least one to three times a month until they reach the 5-year mark. During each community visit, the CWS field staff observes the clean water level at the water treatment center, holds meetings with the water business entrepreneurs and then conducts six household surveys to evaluate the water treatment center’s performance.
Amin and I talking to Sofou, one of the water business entrepreneurs in Nyamaliga. Nyamaliga was implemented in 2010, making it the oldest CWS community and will be the first village to reach the “5-year mark”.Household visits! Checking the safe storage container to see if there is clean water inside.
So what happens when a community reaches the 5-year mark? The idea is that the water businesses will be self-sufficient and will be able to operate without monitoring. As of right now, CWS will still sell these 5-year mark communities aquatabs to treat the water and be on call for any water business emergencies. No community has reached that mark just yet but we are in the process of prepping our villages to get there. CWS has started a “Village Independence Ranking System” to evaluate which villages can operate successfully without frequent monitoring (as in one to three times a month). The system ranks CWS water businesses based on their performance since implementation taking into consideration: water business sales, blue drum and polytank water levels, how the entrepreneurs handle minor problems on their own, how a village handles rainwater, household visit results and whether entrepreneurs are able to pay for business supplies on their own.
The CWS Village Independence Ranking System
Our first batch of villages to be deemed independent was in November 2012. Chani, Kpalguni, Kpalung and Wambong were the first villages to become “independent”, meaning that the CWS field staff now visits these four villages once a month instead of the usual one to three times a month. All of the water business entrepreneurs have a CWS field staff’s cell phone number to call in case they have any problems such as running out of aquatabs or if their polytank is leaking. In January 2013, CWS added Kurugu Vohoyili and Cheko to this list.
We were not really sure how the businesses would perform once CWS spent less time in these communities. But the results have been very positive! All of these centers have been up and running since they became “independent”, sales are high in all of them and household visit results have been consistent with their previous history.
Abiba, the new water business entrepreneur in Cheko
One of the more memorable monitoring visits I had was in Cheko with my co-worker Amin. This past month we went to monitor for the first time since February. It had been a full month. We first stopped to check out the water treatment center. The polytank was completely full. This is always a good sign when monitoring because you know there is lots of clean water available (about 1,200 L in this case). Then we went to talk to Kukuoona, the water business entrepreneur in Cheko. Amin and I got to her house only to find out that she had moved to Tamale to live with her son! We were shocked because Kukuoona has worked with CWS for so long, we never thought she would leave. The woman we talked to pointed us to another compound and told us that Abiba was now running the center. So off we went to find Abiba. She was home, which is always great news. Abiba was glad to finally meet us because she just ran out of aquatabs that day. She told us that she had been running the water treatment center for the past month and that Kukuoona trained her to run it well. Abiba said sales were still high and household visits proved her story to be true! Amin and I drove back to Tamale happy as clams. Even without frequent monitoring, these centers are still running independently and successfully.
Amin checks the polytank water level in Nekpegu
After this upcoming fellowship in summer 2013, it will be time again to evaluate six more villages to be put into this independent category. The CWS field staff enjoy going to these villages because they perform so well, so it will be sad to only go once a month. But the good news is that the system is working and when those first villages reach the 5-year mark, I know they will be ready!
-Brianán
Summary Report from the WASH Sustainability Forum January 2011: http://globalwaterchallenge.org/resources/SustainabilityForum/WASHSustainabilityForumReport.pdf
“NGO Water Sector Confronts Sustainability Problem” – Article by Maia Booker and Peter Sawyer – http://pulitzercenter.org/articles/world-water-day-wash-sustainability-forum-report
We are so excited to introduce our 2013 Summer Fellows! We have an awesome group together and are so excited to launch new water businesses and bring clean drinking water to more people. We can’t wait to be in Ghana with all of you in June. It is going to be a blast!
This Summer we are extremely excited to announce that we will be having two programs in Ghana, our usual program in Tamale and a smaller program in Salaga. The Salaga program was not advertised but offered to Fellow Alums and applicants with significant travel experience, as the program takes place in a more rural area. We will all be arriving in Accra together, participating in orientation together in Tamale, and then will be off implementing in Tamale and Salaga (which is about 3.5 hours away).
Without further ado, here are our 2013 Summer Fellows:
Angela Agnese
Bridgid Reardon
Bryan Rezende
Bryant Foreman
Carole Anne Spohn
Caroline Collins
Casey Kortarba
Daniela Barajas
Dori Nguyen
Eda Reed
Ethan Earl
Hailey Kwon
Jacob Fisher
Jhanel Chew
Katie Rumer
Kristen Abel
Lilly Prince
Lucas Hilsbos
Maxine Auzerais
Renee Lacroix
Sandra Mancilla
Sarah Fukui
Stephanie Wilson
Taylor Kirby
Victoria Leonard
Interested in joining us on a fellowship program? Learn more information here.
