Although we have only been into our village, Wuvogumani, three times, being with Community Water Solutions has already been an incredible experience. We all agree that the most immediate surprise was how welcoming Ghanaians have been to us. We discovered this about the Ghana on our first day as a team during a competition. While shopping around the cultural center and getting orientated with the area, a man selling something on the street jokingly yelled at us. We then struck up a playful conversation about the main differences between America and Ghana. Already we made a friend and continue to meet more friendly faces everyday.
Elijah and Amin on the 2nd day in Wuvogumani
Along similar lines, another small, yet significant, part of our experience has been the ease of connecting with people who do not speak English. Since we must describe how dugout water gets contaminated through fecal contamination, the word poop is translated often. Our translator, Amin, taught us the word in Dagbnai, bindy. While in our initial meeting with the chief, a formal and important occasion, the elders of the community were making jokes about bindy. Humor has been the easiest way to connect with the members of the village we are working in. We decided that you don’t have to share a language to share a laugh.
Abby with some of her new Ghanian friends
An addition thought we want to share is about the failed past water projects we have seen since visiting different villages. It’s almost eerie seeing the past attempts to bring clean water to various communities. Yet by seeing these failed projects, it has motivated our team’s desire to do everything in our power to get the community excited about their Community Water Solutions clean water treatment business. We now more fully understand all the factors that allow Community Water Solutions to be so sustainable.
One of the keys to CWS’ success is involving the entire community in every step of the implementation process. Here are the women in Wovuhumani after our community meeting!
Our first visit to the village was more successful than we thought it would be! We thought that we would have the chief meeting and it wold be more business-like and they would tell us that they wold think about working with us. To our surprise, after the elders of Sagbarigu and some of the women warmed up to us, it felt more like a gathering – hanging out with old friends!
Katie gets handed off a baby! He looks a little unsure about the whole thing!
During the meeting, the elders continually told us how excited they were! They decided that they wanted to talk to their village and gather questions for the community meeting the next day.
Ana gets a baby on her back!
Following the meeting, a woman led us to their stream while a bunch of kids followed behind. This stream is where the village is currently fetching their drinking water. We quickly collected samples of water from the stream and then got to see the village’s borehole that produces salty, undrinkable water. The remainder of our time in the village was spent getting to know the villagers. Nestor, our translator, brought his drum and we had a lot of fun taking pictures and dancing with the women and children! The kids really enjoyed having their pictures taken and Ana even got to back a baby!
– Team Nestor
(Alex, Katie, Ana and Nicole)
After a the chief meeting, Nestor starts up a beat on his drum for a dance party!To no surprise, Nestor jumps in the middle to break it down
My apologizes for the lack of blog updates recently! If you follow Community Water Solutions on Facebook and Instragram, you probably understand why the blog has been radio-silent: we have been busy, busy, busy, bringing solar power to another community! That’s right, in 3 weeks Sam, Shak, Wahab and I implemented not one, but TWO solar businesses which provide electricity to over 1,000 people. It’s been a crazy-fun learning experience! First let’s pick up where we left off in Sakpalua…
Success in Sakpalua
I think the photos in our last blog post really tell it all – opening night in Sakpalua was a big success! Lydia, Damu, Fuseina, and Saramatu were awesome. Two ladies posted-up by the sales door to collect payments and record sales while the other two ladies took batteries out of the chargers and immediately replaced them with a new set to get charging. The business completely sold out of charged batteries within the first 30 minutes! The Burro batteries must be rented out directly from their chargers because as soon as they are removed, they start to loose little bit of their charge. Since,the Genset can only charge 60 batteries at a time, the ladies could only sell those 60 batteries (20 lanterns worth) at once before waiting for another batch to charge up.
Fuesina in re-chargable battery heaven!
We were hopeful that another round of 60 batteries could charge quickly, so we decided to play some videos that we had taken in the community to distract customers while they were waiting. We plugged our projector into the Genset and projected the videos on the side of the solar center. It was a big hit!
Unfortunately, after 45 minutes of waiting, the next round of batteries still weren’t charged. So, the ladies closed up shop and told the remaining customers to come back in the morning. This often happens on our water business opening days as well. Since it’s the very first day of sales, it’s the only time that every single family in the community will need water or batteries all at the same time. After opening night, demand starts to spread out as different families use their lanterns more/less (or drink more/less water). The remaining customers in Sakpalua totally understood and came back the next day to rent their batteries!
After opening night, things continued to go well in Sakpalua. By the end of the first week, the ladies had charged over 60 cell phones and rented out over 140 batteries! They also started buying lanterns from us at cost (16 GHC) and selling them for 18 GHC to families both in Sakpalua and in neighboring villages. In that first week, the women had made a profit of over 50 GHC (~ 25 USD). Considering that most families in Sakpalua live on less than 2 USD/day, that’s a pretty great first week of business!
Saramatu, Damu, Lydia and Fuseina posing by the solar business after their first week of salesDamu by the water business in Sakpalua. Water sales are staying strong! Damu and Lydia were planning their first water-training for Fuseina and Saramatu that night!
New Solar Business in Chani
After an exciting night in Sakpalua, we were up bright and early the next day to head to our next solar village, Chani for our chief meeting! Longtime CWS supporters will remember Chani from our Indiegogo video last spring – it’s a rural village about an hour outside of Tamale in the East Gonja District. Our movie-star water entrepreneur, Salamatu, and her partner Munera, have done an amazing job of running their water business, which opened in January 2011. Chani has always been a model CWS partner-community, with consistent water sales throughout the year. We knew they would be a perfect candidate for our next solar pilot![vimeo 61806019 w=500 h=281]
We arrived in Chani to learn that the chief had recently died, and so instead of a small meeting with the elders, the community wanted to have a big community-wide meeting. It was great! Sam, Wahab, and I explained the concept of the solar business and everyone was on board and excited. The village decided right away that they wanted Salamatu and Munera to run the solar business as well since they are the “most hardworking women in the community and know how to count well.” Done and done! So far all 4 of our solar communities have chosen the water women to run the solar businesses too. It’s been very interesting to see that decision made!
Building the solar charging center in Chani went very smoothly. Both men and women from the community were very helpful. Not to toot our own horns, but Sam and I both agree that this is the nicest-looking solar center that CWS has built so far!
Preparing the gravel to build the solar centerMixing the clayWorking hard or hardly working?Laying the first row of bricksAfter the first day of building – see if you can spot some of these kids Lucy’s photo in the next paragraph!Even small children helped to plaster the building!The finished solar charging center in Chani! What a beauty!
Training the women and distributing lanterns also went off without any hiccups. After 3 years of running the water business, Salamatu and Munera are very comfortable working together. They have a very funny dynamic! Sam and I had so much fun with the children in Chani. It was really cool to see the kids that Lucy had photographed 1.5 years ago. We have been using these pictures for all of our PR materials, so those little faces have been ingrained in our memories. It was amazing to see how everyone had grown up so much!
Lucy’s photo from Chani in January 2013 – Can you spot some familiar faces from the photo above with Sam and I? Kudus, Sadik, Wasila, Wahanna were just a few of the kiddos that we recognized right away!Lantern distributionSo excited to receive their lantern!Ready for opening night!
Salamatu hooking the Genset up to the solar panels
After a very smooth implementation, we were very excited for opening night, which was scheduled for Saturday, April 19th. Unfortunately, when we rolled into the village that night, we hit our first major implementation roadblock: nothing was working! When we left Chani 4 hours earlier, the Genset was on, the sun was shining down on the solar panels, and all of the battery chargers were plugged in. When we returned, the Genset was off, the chargers were off, and the batteries were not charged. Shak, the electrician by nature and the most experienced with our solar charging stations, immediately got to work taking apart the system and investigating the problem. While he was doing that, I called up our partners at Burro, who we bought the Genset from. After about 30 minutes, we all realized that the problem was something major that would not be able to be fixed that night.
The problem with the Genset was very disappointing for a couple reasons. First and foremost, the entire village was out waiting for rent their batteries and charge their phones. Chani had been wanting access to electricity for so long and it was so hard to tell them that they would have to wait, even though it would only be a few days. People in these communities are VERY used to foreign NGOs making big promises and never following through. Even though we have worked with Chani for over 3 years, and they trust our partnership, it was still heartbreaking to pull away that night, with all of our equipment in-hand when we had promised electricity that night. The other reason this was particularly disappointing was that it was a holiday weekend, which meant that there was no way the Genet could get fixed before Sam and I had to leave for the States. In the grand scheme of things, opening night isn’t about us at all – it’s about Salamatu, Munera and the families in Chani. But, after 3 weeks of 4:45 am wakeup calls, without one day off, we were bummed to miss opening night.
The reality is, things like this happen ALL of the time when you are working in development. The fact that our other 3 previous pilot implementations had all gone smoothly is the exception, not the rule. This problem in Chani gave our team some great experience in learning how to to deal with Genset issues. If this happens during a Fellowship Program, we will be prepared! Burro, was also great to work with and proved to be very committed to getting us a working Genset. They were available to our team any time of day, despite their holiday weekend and one of their re-sellers in Tamale ended up being the guy to fix the problem. The issue ended up being a faulty inverter, which Burro replaced for us. There was nothing that our team, or the ladies in Chani had done wrong in setting up the system – it was simply a bad part.
Shak and Wahab did a great job working with Burro and communicating with Chani. The following Wednesday, opening night part 2 went off without a hitch! Every household in Chani rented batteries for their lanterns and some brought their cell phones as well. Salamatu and Munera were really excited and no one seemed upset that opening night was delayed. Brianan’s family was in town to visit her and they all got to come out for the opening – it was great to have such a big crowd there to celebrate! A BIG THANKS, again, to Next Step Living for funding the start-up cost of the solar businesses in Kurugu Vohoyili, Sakpalua, and Chani!
Opening night part two! Brianan, Munera, Salamatu, and ShakEric showing a new customer how to put her rented batteries into the lantern.Munera and Salamatu after an awesome opening! These ladies are the best!
In 3 short weeks, Sam and I will be returning to Ghana with 46 water Fellows and our first-ever team of solar Fellows. We can’t wait to get back to Tamale and run our biggest-ever Summer Fellowship!
Sam and I have been having a blast in Sakpalua this week! I hope that you all enjoyed the video of building the solar center. Since then, the village has helped us plaster the building and install the solar panels. It looks great! Solar panels really are the energy of the future, being able to use them all around the world is fantastic for people who want to help the earth. If you don’t know much about solar energy, Click Here to learn more. We all know that fossil fuels are killing our planet and it’s great that we were able to install these panels for the villagers. We all need to do our bit to save the planet and keep our energy useable renewable. There is more info here on solar installation in certain areas, if you don’t find yours, then researching local companies can show you if they are available.
Connecting the solar panels to poles.
Once the solar center was all set up, we started training the women entrepreneurs. The village nominated 4 women to work at the center: Lydia & Damu – the two water entrepreneurs; and Fuseina & Saramatu – two new ladies! We were so thrilled that the elders nominated 4 women because it means that this great income-generating opportunity could be shared. Lydia and Damu are also planning to show Fuseina and Saramatu how to run the water business, so all four of them can manage both businesses together. Sam and I think that its going to work out really well!
Saramatu, Lydia, Damu, Sam, Fuseina, and me
On Wednesday, Sam, Shak and I showed the ladies how to hook up the battery to the inverter, and then the solar panels to the battery (through the Burro Genset which also has a charge controller). They caught on very quickly and were pros before we knew it!
Lydia connecting the two solar panels to each other while Damu and Fuseina watch and learn.Damu connects the battery to Genset which houses a inverter and charge controller.
When we returned to Sakpalua this morning, we had the ladies de-wire the whole system and put it back together again without our instruction. They nailed it!
Fuseina connects the solar panels to the Burro Genset while her granddaughter sleeps on her back. She is the ultimate working mom!
After finishing up our training with the women, Sam, Shak and I distributed the Burro lanterns to the families in Sakpalua. These lanterns usually retail for 20 GHC (about 9 USD) but each family had the chance to “opt in” to the solar program by buying a lantern for 1 GHC. If they decided to pay 1 GHC, each family received 1 lantern to share. They can buy more at retail price from the women entrepreneurs at any time. Every family that we visited opted into the program and they were all so excited to receive a lantern!
Sam getting ready to distribute some lanterns! It was a long day in the sun, but we had a a great time!We spoke to each family, showed them how to use the lanterns and explained how the solar business would work.Sam and Shak distributing more lanterns!
Each lantern uses 3 rechargeable batteries that people in Sakpalua can rent from the ladies at the solar business for 10 pewas (about 5 cents) each. The batteries should last about a week, depending on how often each family uses their lantern. When the batteries lose their charge, people can return them to the solar center and get “fresh” ones for 10 peswas each. Just like Kurugu Vohoyilli and Wambong, people can also charge their cell phones at the solar center for 50 peswas each (about 23 cents). The ladies in Sakpalua decided that they wanted to charge the same price to charge a cell phone as the people in their village pay in Tamale. Fuseina noted that if people are willing to travel for over an hour to charge their phone for 50 peswas in Tamale, they should be happy to avoid the travel and same the same price in the village! We will see how sales go, but so far everyone seemed satisfied with the price when we explained it during distribution. Gotta love Fuseina’s supply-and-demand theory!
Sam shows the chief of Sakpalua how to use his new Burro lantern!The Sakpaluanayilli family poses for a picture with their new lantern! Their family name is the same name as the village because their father/grandfather was a former chief!
The only hiccup that we ran into today was that the roof of the solar center was leaking. Shak and I will be bringing a carpenter tomorrow morning to fix it so that we will be all ready for opening night tomorrow night! While we are fixing the roof, Sam will be going to Chani with Wahab to hold a meeting with the chief about bringing a solar business to their community. If all goes well, two new villages and over 1,000 people will gain access to solar electricity this month! A HUGE thank you to Next Step Living for supporting CWS’ expansion into solar. We could not do any of this work without you!
Me and Sam with our Burro Lanterns! We have both been LOVING getting back in the field!
Sam and I arrived in Tamale on Thursday and got straight to work on our 3rd solar business pilot in the village of Sakpalua!
Sakpalua is a rural village of about 500-600 people located about an hour outside of Tamale. We first started working in this community in April 2012 when the Spring Fellows implemented a water business with Lydia and Dama, two awesome water entrepreneurs. Over the past two years, these two ladies have been working extremely hard and as a result, the water business as been a huge success! Lydia and Dama are able to solve most problems on their own and run their water business with little to no assistance from the CWS staff. Since Sakpalua is not on a main road, they will not have access to electricity anytime in the near future. They were the perfect choice for our next solar pilot!
Sam, Shak and I arrived in Sakpalua on Saturday morning for our first meeting with the chief and elders. We learned that most families in the village were using kerosene lamps for light, but many have stopped due the the high price of kerosene. These lamps are not only extremely hazardous to health, but are also horrible for the environment. However, there are limited options other than kerosene and most families have no light in their home once the sun goes down. Many people have cell phones, but must travel all the way to Tamale and pay high prices to charge them. The chief and elders were thrilled to hear about the solar-business idea and couldn’t wait to get started!
Meeting the the chief and elders. From L to R: Shak reads through the household list; Sam holding up a dangerous kerosene lamp and the awesome Burro lanterns that we will be distributing to the village; Shak and I explain to the Chief how the Burro lanterns use rechargeable batteries.
After returning from the village, Shak taught Sam and I how to assemble Burro’s solar Genset. The system has worked really well in Kurugu Vohoyili and we are excited to continue our partnership with Burro in this next pilot! Shak has learned so much about solar power since his first pilot with Ben and Mark in Wambong and was a fabulous teacher!
Shak teaching Sam how to connect the battery to the inverter.Sam, Yakabu, Kate and Shak testing out the solar panels – everything worked on our first try!
Today we started building the structure for the solar business. We used all local materials found in the village and almost 50 people came out to help build! Tomorrow we put on the roof, plaster the walls and then will bring the solar panels on Monday!
-Kate
Laying the first layer of clay bricksAll of the bricks that we used for the solar center were recycled from old houses that had collapsed in the last rainy seasonSam and I mixing up some clayOne of my favorite parts of the day was watching people from the village walk by on their way to fetch clean water from the water business!Half-way done!Celebrating a great day of building with all of the helpers from Sakpalua!Cheers!
Greetings from Emily, Sara, Thalia and Alex aka team TJ!! TJ is our friend and translator, also known as T to the J, Teeg, or 2Chainz. For the past two weeks we have been implementing a shared water treatment center that will serve Kuldanali, a village of 58 households and Yapalsi, a smaller village of 25 households. Both use the Volta River as their water source, which we have found to be contaminated with E. coli among other things. Our two most recent visits to the two villages have been for opening day as well as the first day of monitoring.
Our opening day, in which water sales officially began, was a huge success. With over a 90% household turnout it was clear that the two villages were excited about their new access to clean water. The day began as we viewed the first group of women walk down the hill towards the treatment center with their staple CWS blue buckets. It was encouraging for us to see their excitement in the impending purchase of clean water. The enthusiasm spread across generations—middle-aged mothers arrived confidently balancing the safe storage containers on their heads and small girls ran down with multiple buckets. We were extremely impressed by the confidence in our three women entrepreneurs – Florence and Akweeya from Kuldanali and Adamoo from Yapalsi. The day began somewhat hectically as this was their first day as business owners. While it was somewhat chaotic for the initial sales, the women entrepreneurs quickly organized the process along with the assistance of the young girls who washed the safe storage containers. From then on the business owners meshed together as they successfully distributed the day’s worth of buckets.
Opening day!
We were thankful to have our first day off after our opening day! We ventured to the Fuller Waterfalls with TJ and attended a lively concert in the evening.
Team TJ!
We were enthusiastically greeted by our women entrepreneurs upon arriving at the water center—this was easily the most excitement we have seen from them so far. Our team got a strong sense that the women were taking ownership of the center. As we asked them questions about their sales they beamed and seemed confident about the future of their business. After visiting the center, we started our first day of monitoring. We visited 13 households, all of which were using the safe storage container correctly and were enthused about their access to clean water. As we monitored, there were a few leaky buckets between the two villages but they were quick fixes by TJ. It was fun to chat with each household and ask them about what they thought of the taste of their new water.
Yesterday was opening day for CWS’s new water treatment center in Chandanyili. Several Fulani women (a nomadic group from Mali and Nigeria) were the first to arrive at the center near the dugout. The two entrepreneurs, Abiba and Zaharawu, were excited to begin filling safe storage containers and began right away. At first, only ten or so households arrived, but before we knew it, a large crowd formed near the Polytank, all ready to fill their buckets with safe, clean drinking water. Bimala helped several women clean their safe storage containers with soap and clean water from the Polytank before filling up, while Rachael and Anna helped record the number of customers at the center, and Jenna and Wahab distributed the last few safe storage containers on the list. Since some of the Fulani women don’t speak Dagbani, Jenna and Wahab worked to triple- and quadruple-translate the proper way to use each safe storage container.
Excitement amongst the women grew as the first few safe storage containers were filled with clear, clean water. Several women filled their lids with clean water and passed it around to get a taste. Abiba and Zaharawu quickly got into a rhythm – one would fill safe storage containers while another collected money and helped others lift the buckets to carry on their heads. After three hours of successful clean water distribution, the Polytank was empty and we counted our sales. We filled 64 (of 67) safe storage containers! We can’t wait to check in on each household and see how they like the water next week!
Desibah (Good Morning in Dugbani)!! Our names are Meghan, Bryan, and Jazmin, aka the Dream Team. We, along with our awesome translator Shak, were assigned to the village Dundo for the CWS water sanitation center implementation. Our first day was short: we entered the community, which is approximately 70 households, and introduced ourselves to the elders, and learned the chief was away traveling. The elders were rocking Ray-Bans and lounging under a tree, so needless to say we had a good feeling about the village. Bryan delivered a stunning proposition to the elders, telling them about CWS and gauging their interest in the clean water project. With a quick yes, we were on our way.
The second day we got to meet the actual chief, and we entered into his palace to introduce ourselves. He already had the down-low on the project, and gave us his blessing to start our work. In leaving, Meghan fell off the bench and into the arms of an elder, which she soon learned meant that he was now her husband. Things move quickly in Ghana, apparently. Afterwards, we headed to the dugout accompanied by the village mason to start building the stand for the treatment center. Other men jumped in, and the foundation was set in no time. Bryan attempted to help but ended up breaking two bricks instead, and was consequently sent to go play with the kids. An hour of catch and a few games of soccer later, and it was time to go.
The next day, we held a community meeting. Around 70 people were there, and each of the group members took turns explaining the project. This was met with many “Mmmmm’s” and we soon headed to the dugout. The men had already filled the foundation and the stand was ready to be plastered. The mason got right to work mixing the concrete, and used a trowel to spread it over the foundation. Bryan again attempted to help, and while tossing the plaster onto the stand ended up missing completely and nearly hitting one of the workers. He was once again sent away to play with the kids.
The next morning was a hectic search for all the items needed to start training the women. Shak led us fearlessly through the back alleys of Tamale, and after lots of bartering and getting pulled over by the police, we made it to Dundo. Jazmin took over with the training of the women, and helped them fill the blue drums and use the alum on the water to make the particles settle. She also mastered balancing a small bucket on her head, to the amusement of all the women carrying giant drums of water on their heads with ease. After the center was all set, it was time to distribute the safe storage containers. Meghan took over now to give instructions to each household, and with Shak they managed to hand out 20 containers. Thoroughly exhausted, the team headed back to Gillbt.
Next, it was time to set up the polytank and complete the water treatment center. Walking from the village to the dugout, a few of the braver kids decided to hold our hands. Shortly after, each of us had a kid dangling off each finger. We set up the tank and the two women filled it with the clear water from the blue drums, with the help of the other women whom they coerced. After that, Bryan and Meghan did more distribution, tackling around 30 households. A train of about 15 little kids helped carry the safe storage containers for us, and were slightly distracting when we were trying to instruct the women.
Today was filled with more training of the two women running the center and more distribution. They learned how to use the aquatabs, how to manage their money and profits, and more about the bacteria in the dugout water that makes them sick. We then distributed containers to the other side of the village and gave the chief his own container. The kids were all in school, so our lunch was very quiet, and we got to ask Shak all about polygamous marriages. Our taxi driver, Ibrahim is planning on having 4 wives and Shak is planning on having 23 kids, fun fact. After lunch we had nothing else to do, so we went home. Opening day is just two days away, and we feel prepared and excited for the villagers to taste the clean water from the treatment center!
Meaghan distributing safe storage containers with the help of some village membersAfter the community meeting Meghan, Bryan & Jazmin jump in for an awesome pic
