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#WorldWaterDay Recap

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This year for World Water Day, we welcomed women from 8 Saha villages: Chanbuligu, Kuchani, Defisa, Wovogu, Wovogumani, Nomnayili, Guma, and Kujeri.

Rain the night before made getting some of the women to Tamale more difficult, but everyone eventually arrived safely!  While we waited, we played the simple but very fun “Stump!” a Saha original game.


Our team led a lively discussion with the women by posing questions that got the entreprensurs talking and sharing ideas.  They talked about difficulties with dry dugouts and using motorkings and donkey carts to bring water from further distances during the dry season.   When discussing marketing and advertising, one woman shared that she has told her customers that if they come with their child, and the child has a small container, she lets the child fill their container for free!

The women discussed savings strategies in depth. Saha does not pay the women they need to save any profit they make in order to buy any replacement parts if things break.  Mariama from Nomnayili is working with a microfinance NGO and has been able to save a truly impressive amount of money in the three short months her business has been running!

Other topics included health and sanitation, community involvement with the businesses, and the larger picture of the Saha mission.  After the discussions, we had lunch and the group socialized and of course, took some selfies!

 

Our goal for the day was to have the women meet and share ideas, show them some appreciation for their hard work, and have them leave with a better understanding of what a large community they are truly a part of! Some of our villages are very geographically isolated, so we want them know that there are literally hundreds of other women who deal with the same challenges they do!

Thank you to Sachiya and Samata from Wovoumani, Ishatu and Asana from Wovogu, Warihana and Sumaya from Chanbuligu, Mariama from Nomnayili, Mariam and Adisa from Kuchani, Abibata and Zeha from Defisa, Ayi and Maimunatu from Navali Guma, and Asana and Abuo from Kujeri for joining us!

Kujeri, Navaili Guma, Nomnayili & Nyantag – 1 month update!

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It’s been just over 1 month since our #Saharmattan 2018 winter program businesses opened! We’ve loved getting to know our 16 newest entrepreneurs and chat clean water with new families! There have been highs, there have been lows, but we are committed to working in these villages for at LEAST another 119 more months, so we know this is just the beginning.

Click on the links below for a summary of how each new business is doing by the numbers, followed by our monitoring transcripts. Some of the January monitoring transcripts are missing, since we transitioned to a different survey January 20th and it took a week or so for us to work out the kinks!

Before you wade into the messy details of Saha data, here are some quick explanations of what numbers mean, how we collect them, and why certain things look the way they do. If you are a data viz wiz, feel free to skip right to the fun stuff.

  1. Visits to the Village – this is just in the first month! More recent visits aren’t included in this summary.
  2. Graph of Percentages of Households (HH) with Polytank Water (PT) – look at the Y axis! These graphs do not span from 0% to 100%. In Nomnayili, for example, the graph goes from 65% to 100%.
  3. Savings – This graph charts responses to the question, “How much do you currently have saved for replacement parts?” So it can fluctuate based on expenditures or even who you talk to!

And now – THE SUMMARIES. 

Nomnayili

Nyantag

Kujeri – *spoiler alert* sadly, the dugout has dried out, but the women are working to get a motorking to bring water. This means they pay an off-roading tricycle to drive to another source of water transport water back in storage containers, for a fee. Of course, Saha will be there to help the business restart once it rains again and the dugout stores water. While difficult for the community, it’s not uncommon for dugouts to dry out as the dry season continues, and at Saha we believe we would rather people have clean water for as many months of the year as possible. And the good news is that, like in Kujeri, there are ways to transport water from other sources to treat (though this added cost and logistics management makes the business a little more difficult to run). You’ll see this reflected in lower percentages of households that have clean water, or empty polytanks – indicators to our team that operations are not business as usual. Ultimately, we find that once the rain fills the closer source again, it’s pretty easy to get the business back up and running again. Check out these blog posts on seasonal transitions to read more context. 

Naviali Guma – *spoiler alert* sadly, the stream has dried out, but the women have moved the center to town and are working with a motoking and have increased prices to cover the cost of transportation. Read the Kujeri spoiler for more seasonal explanations. Saha will be there to help the business restart once it rains again.

If you have any questions, email our awesome Operations Coordinator, Heidi at [email protected] . We’re figuring out how to make it easier to check up on your village’s status, so stay tuned to our “sustainability” page.

Thank you for your support.

#saharmattan – reflections on the winter ’18 program

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It’s been just over a month since we said goodbye to the 2018 Winter Field Reps. Thanks to this awesome group students and young professionals, Saha was able to partner with with 4 more communities in Northern Ghana to open new water treatment businesses. Because of them, over 1,000 more people now have the ability to drink clean water each day. 16 women entrepreneurs are able to provide potable water to their friends, family and neighbors through  community-supported small businesses. And Saha is able to welcome 15 new faces to our global Saha family!

Alexa, Amber, Amy, Annie, Bronte, Dan, Hadley, Jill, Juliette, Justin, Rhiana, Taylor, Tiffany, Victoria, and Yaa:

We did it! We powered through the unanticipated busses and breakdowns and survived the first hours of 2018. We rolled with the punches and found joy and success in the unexpected! Though not every moment was easy, all the (literal) blood, sweat and tears paid off. 
It was such a pleasure to work with all of y’all, and we consider ourselves lucky to count you as part of Sahayili! As you head off to your next adventures, please don’t forget
Kujeri, Namvili Guma, Nomnayili & Nyantag
and all of us here at Saha, and let us know what we can do to further your missions. Stay tuned for 1st month business updates this week, right here. 

With gratitude,

Amin, Blessing, Dzorsah, Eda, Eric, Heidi, Kate, Kathryn, Morganne, Nestor, Peter, Shak, Simply, Sita, TJ and Wahab

And now… the jumping pics.

Team Justin, TJ, Rhiana and Amin in Nyantag
Team Yaa, Sita, Juliette, Dan, Taxi Driver Gaff and Taylor in Nomnayili
Team Victoria, Annie, Amber, Taufik and Alexa in Navaili Guma
Team Dzorsah, Bronte, Jill, Hadley and Tiffany in Kujeri

 

Field Rep Voices: Team Bronte, Dzorsah, Hadley, Jill and Tiffany

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With this post, we’re kicking off our “Field Rep Voices” segment for winter 18! What better way to keep you up to date with the progress of our 4 new water business implementations then to hear from our Field Reps themselves? Over the next few weeks, you’ll have the chance to hear from each team about the challenges and successes of all our new business. So without further ado, take it away, Team Dzorsah!

We have been having a great time in our village, Kujeri, in Ghana’s Northern Region! On our first day in the village, we met with the chief to propose our clean water business, and every day since then has gone incredibly well.

Mayama pours water to treat

 

Jill leads the way to the dugout

 

Over the past nine days, we have collected and monitored their current dugout water; selected our four female entrepreneurs (Asana, Abu, Mayama, and Mamemumat); and started building the treatment center. Our team has also loved exploring the Tamale market during our free time!

Mamemouna poses for her picture.

The entrepreneurs pour water to be treated
Bronte and Hadley balance work and fun

One of the most rewarding experiences was showing the clean and dirty 3M samples during the chief, elder, and community meetings. It was striking for everyone in the village to see the positive tests for bacteria and E.coli in their own dugout water sources for the first time – and it got everyone further inspired and enthusiastic towards building the sustainable center soon!

Ni kooliga!

Additionally, everyone in the village has been so friendly, welcoming, and grateful. One of the highlights was when the village chief presented us with a guinea fowl and 16 cassava yams to express his thanks! To balance work and play, we also play soccer with the kids most afternoons.

Our driver Hustla and our translator Dzorsah have been amazing, and make every dusty drive to Kujeri a good time (#SAHArmattan). We are so excited for the opening day of Kujeri’s clean water business this Thursday!

  • Bronte, Tiffany, Jill, and Hadley