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

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 heidi@sahaglobal.org . 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

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: Amy, Justin, Rhiana and TJ

Three Weeks in Nyantag
“May God bless you.” It’s a short and simple prayer we have often received from many of the villagers in Nyantag these past three weeks. “We knew that the dugout water was unsafe to drink,” said one woman, “but it was the only option we had. We are thankful that our children can now drink clean water and will not have to drink the dugout water that we’ve always had to drink.”
In just three weeks’ time we have met with Nyantag’s chief and his elders, trained women entrepreneurs from their village, and watched these women have a successful opening day for their new clean water business. We have made friends amongst the children while playing soccer and tag, and we taught them their new favorite game, “Duck, Duck, Goose.” We have been sent off with the trunk of our car full of yams, a staple crop from Nyantag’s fields on three separate days.
Some of the village’s children

 

Teaching kids at the village school about the importance of drinking clean water.

 

We have enjoyed our three weeks working with Saha. We accomplished our goal and helped start Saha’s 118th clean water business in the Northern Region. We leave in just a few days knowing this business is in the good hands of our entrepreneurs, Naiyla, Maymunatu, Borobiche, and Janaba, along with the Saha monitors who will continue to provide support for the next ten years.
The entrepreneurs running the clean water business
To conclude, we would like to say thank you to our supporters who contributed toward the startup costs of Nyantag’s clean water business. Know that your donations have been well spent, and the population of nearly 1,000 people are very grateful. The villages that Saha has worked with have reported improvements in health since their clean water businesses have opened. Now it’s Nyantag’s turn to reap the benefits thanks to your support.
The water business on opening day
Our team.
– Team TJ