Blog

Meet Our Entrepreneurs: Samata from Gurumanchayili

Every month Saha’s Manager Eric sits down with one of our entrepreneurs to ask her about her work and life beyond Saha.

Samata was born in Wa in the Upper West Region. She later went with her father to live in Techiman. She was raised by her father in Techiman until she got married and moved to Gurumanchayili. Samatha has three children, one girl and two boys.

The water treatment business was implemented in Gurumanchayili in January of 2014 by Winter Field Reps, Danielle, MJ, Kallie & Brittany. “I remember how hardworking the Field Reps were and how much the kids in the community loved playing with them,” she said.

Samata mentioned that people used to complain about stomach cramps before, but that has minimized now that they have clean water to drink. “I am happy to working as the entrepreneur at the water treatment center. I am happy to be able to provide safe, clean drinking water for my community.”

In addition to running the water treatment center, Samata also picks shea nuts. She then makes into shea butter and sells it in the market.

Voices from the Field: Team Nestor

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Kallie, Danielle, Brittany and MJ with the chief and elders in Guremancheyili.

Yesterday was our second day in our village, Guremancheyili.  Just the day before, we went to the village and met with the chief and elders to explain what Community Water Solutions is and our vision for the village.  They welcomed us with open arms so we went back today to meet with the entire community.  It was a little intimidating at first, as the entire village was there surrounding us (we were in the middle and had to spin around to talk to everyone).  One thing we noticed is that all of the men sat together, all of the women in a different spot and all of the kids filling in the gaps.  We had broken up our speech so all of us got to explain a different part of the process and bond with the community.  They especially loved the beginning when we said “Despa” (good morning) and “Ebeera” (how did you sleep) to the entire village, and that helped set the tone for the meeting.  At the end, our village asked a lot of questions but sometimes other village people would answer for them which showed us they were really getting the concepts down that we’d been explaining, which made us feel great.  Afterwards, the entire village wanted to get in a picture with us followed by all of the women and then by the chief himself.  Upon leaving we felt very welcome in the community and are excited to work with them over the coming weeks!!

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Smile!

After our visit to the village, our translator, Nestor, invited us over to his house for Pito, a homemade beer his mom makes.  We were all extremely excited that Nestor was opening up to us and inviting us to meet his family.  His house was a cute little area right off the road and was bustling with people while we were there (as he’d promised).  We got to meet his parents, older brother, friend of his sisters, his best friend, his goat, his puppy (junior el Tigre), his many chickens, and his nieces and nephews.  Everyone in our group LOVED the Pito, except Brittany, and would definitely drink it again.  We drank it out of a calabash, which are bowls made out of dried plants, which made us all feel like a big part of the culture.  After we were done with our Pito, there was a parade going on outside for a new chief of the village.  There were people on motos, people drumming, some dancing and some walking in front of the taxi that held the new chief.  It was another awesome bit of culture we were lucky enough to experience!

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Pito with Nestor!

Today we’ll start building the stand for our treatment center and we couldn’t be more excited to go back to our village!!

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