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Saha Global Awarded $5 Million Grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation to Expand Safe Water Access in Rural Ghana

Posted on September 11, 2024September 11, 2024 by chelseahodgkins

New York, NY – Saha Global, a leading non-profit organization committed to ensuring safe and affordable water for rural communities, is proud to announce that it has been awarded a $5-million grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. This grant, extending over the next five years, marks a significant step in Saha’s mission to achieve universal, equitable, and affordable water access for underserved populations in Ghana.

Saha Global has spent over 15 years developing and refining an innovative, community-driven model that empowers local women as water entrepreneurs and provides affordable safe water to remote, rural villages. This grant will help the organization deepen its impact by expanding their water service to over 400,000 individuals living in some of Ghana’s most remote and vulnerable regions.

“We are deeply honored to receive this support from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, so we can continue to make a lasting impact in communities that are the hardest to reach and often overlooked,” said Kate Cincotta, Executive Director of Saha Global. “This grant is a critical step in expanding our efforts to reach vulnerable populations. It will allow us to advocate for the unique needs of people living in last-mile villages and to ensure that everyone in Ghana has reliable access to safe water.”

This new grant from the Hilton Foundation kickstarts Saha’s broader ambitions: to make access to clean water a fundamental human right, not a privilege. Saha’s long-term goal is to support the Government of Ghana in achieving universal water access for all, particularly for the most marginalized and underserved communities.

“We are pleased to support Saha’s innovative, women-led, safe water enterprise in Ghana,” said Brett Gleitsmann, Program Officer, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. “We value Saha’s proven model to get professional water services to the most vulnerable populations living in remote, last-mile, rural communities and their long-standing commitment to work collaboratively with the Government of Ghana. We look forward to partnering together over the next five years to continue to expand safe water solutions for rural communities across Ghana.”

About Saha Global Founded in 2008, Saha has been at the forefront of delivering affordable, clean water solutions to rural Ghanaian communities. The organization has trained over 1,260 women water entrepreneurs, providing safe water to over 138,816 people in 464 rural villages. Saha’s model ensures reliable, professional water services in remote villages where other solutions have failed. It achieves long-term impact by focusing on water quality and safe water consumption.

About the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, established in 1944, is dedicated to improving the lives of disadvantaged individuals worldwide. Through its Safe Water Initiative, the Foundation has made significant investments in Ghana’s WASH sector, partnering with local governments and organizations to improve water infrastructure and access in rural communities. Their efforts support Ghana’s goal of universal access to safe water by 2030, with a focus on reaching marginalized, last-mile populations. The Foundation also prioritizes areas such as Homelessness, Foster Youth, Early Childhood Development, Catholic Sisters, and Disaster Relief.

Meet the Saha Team: Gbandan Francis (Blessing)

Posted on December 9, 2021December 9, 2021 by admin

Blessing attends the 2021 Mole Conference

Meet Blessing: Saha’s dedicated government liaison. He works with Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies, regional governments, and government entities such as the Community Water and Sanitation Agency on behalf of Saha. He ensures that we are properly registered in each district in which we work, introduces Saha’s work to new districts, and builds partnerships and maintains relationships with government partners. Most of this work happens behind the scenes, but it is absolutely essential to Saha’s work and sustainability.

Blessing grew up in Tamale and attended high school in Salaga. After senior high school, while preparing for his exams, Blessing worked as a “man with many hats” at WASHPOT – managing a supermarket, a pharmacy, and a drinking spot. That’s where he met (now Deputy Director) Kathryn and her partner Redgie, and later (then Country Manager) Brianan, and became football-watching friends. At first, when Saha needed part-time translators for the Global Leadership Program (GLP), Blessing wasn’t free – he had to prepare for exams, and couldn’t quit his job just for a 3-week program. He got the call again in 2014, and since he was planning to start university that year, he decided to take the leap. During training, Blessing vividly remembers visiting the rural villages for the first time – he hadn’t been to places like that before, and his eyes were opened to how much development was needed in some places. His first GLP village implementation was in Original Kabache in Salaga. He describes that first team as great, and still counts them as friends.

Throughout his years studying at University for Development Studies (UDS), Blessing would occasionally translate for the GLP programs – filling in as needed for other people, and in 2017 completed a full implementation in Darivoguyili. Also in 2017, Blessing interned for Saha’s new Research and Development team, staying overnight for two to three days in different communities to observe individuals’ water consumption. When he graduated university in 2018, Saha made sure to snag him for the compulsory National Service Year. That is when Blessing started doing the government liaising work full-time and he’s since become one of our best travelled teammates – visiting all our district and regional partners multiple times a year and bringing different government officials to visit Saha projects.

Using 3M tests to explain the hazards of drinking dugout water

Blessing’s favorite thing about working at Saha is first and foremost the project itself – he identifies strongly with Saha’s mission to get clean water to rural communities. Second, he appreciates how supportive Saha has been to him over the years – this is a culture he attributes to coming straight from Kate at the top. Currently, Blessing is balancing his Saha work with pursuing his master’s in Development Education from UDS and staying on top of every match from Manchester City.

Saha would not be able to do the work it does without our people! We appreciate Blessing for all his many roles over the years with Saha and we are so proud he is a part of our ambitious clean water mission.

Blessing and his first GLP team celebrate the water business at Original Kabache

From R&D Project to S.O.P: The Maintenance Service Program

Posted on September 6, 2021September 6, 2021 by admin

At Saha, we are always learning new things about the best way to open and run clean water businesses in small, rural communities. When we decide to make changes to our model, these ideas need to be vetted and understood thoroughly before they are rolled out to all our partner communities. How do we decide when a great idea merits a big change? The secret lies with our Research and Development (R&D) Team – one of our smallest but most important teams.

While we had conducted small, focused research projects over the years, R&D became an official, permanent fixture at Saha in 2018 when Fuseini Abdul-Mutala was hired. Mutala, along with Deputy Director Kathryn Padgett, commanded a 2-member team until this year when Wahab Lawal joined the team after most recently serving as a Customer Care Front-Line Supervisor. As R&D Supervisors, Mutala and Wahab work diligently towards their mission to research new and innovative projects for Saha. Currently, they spend about 70% of their time in the field, running the projects and collecting data and user feedback, and the other 30% in the office analyzing that data and feedback, making recommendations, and communicating results to their colleagues.

The R&D team has conducted many projects over the years from annual entrepreneur perception surveys to drinking habit observation studies. Several projects from recent years have dramatically shifted parts of Saha’s model. One such project is called the Maintenance Service Program.

The Maintenance Service Fee, or MSF, was a solution to solve a problem that had troubled many Saha businesses from the beginning: how to save the right amount of money to pay for spare parts and repairs at the business. Saha businesses use low-cost, locally available materials, but it was an ongoing challenge for our entrepreneurs to plan their savings cycle for broken parts, and to pay for them when the time came. Sometimes they would take new parts with a loan repayment plan, but collecting money regularly was difficult and could lead to stressful conversations for the field team and the entrepreneurs.

We knew we could make this process easier! Our goal is to implement community owned and operated businesses that run well and have technical problems fixed quickly so they can continue deliver clean water. The R&D team started with an idea: could we offer an annual insurance program that the women entrepreneurs paid into that would cover the cost of replacement parts? First came field research: would anyone even be interested in a 1-time lump sum fee for this service? Team R&D started with surveys of the women entrepreneurs. Ghana has national health insurance, so even in the most remote communities, people understood the concept of “insurancy” – paying in to a scheme that you may never use, but is there when you need it. The entrepreneurs both easily understood the concept and saw the value in such a program. The next step involved some creativity: we wanted a unique term, separate from health insurance and unique to the Saha business, and came up with “maintenance service.”

Back in the office, Team R&D studied years of data to understand which parts break, how often, and how much that would cost a business annually. A pricing structure was created based on village size so the fee was correlated with the amount of money it was possible to make from water sales, and the corresponding wear and tear on the business. The team designed certificates of enrollment that included the date enrolled, and the phone number to call when anything broke.

The team first rolled out the program in six pilot communities, and after seven months, fourteen more. To understand the impact of the program fully, they studied the claims cycle for technical part replacements in these pilot communities versus communities not enrolled in the program. It was remarkable – parts were fixed and replaced quickly without hassle or delay, so businesses had less downtime due to broken parts. The final test – would this program have seemed “worth it” to the entrepreneurs? Yes: when the year was up, all the entrepreneurs elected to renew. When surveyed, all entrepreneurs emphasized how much easier this program was than the old way: challenges were resolved promptly, repairs were fixed faster, and it was much easier financially to save money from the business.

Once the pilot concluded, the data was clear – this service could benefit all Saha communities. After some training, the Customer Care field teams in Tamale and Salaga introduced the concept to each community, collecting fees and issuing receipts and enrollment certificates. To date, 231 businesses are covered under the Maintenance Service Program.

Now the program is in the hands of the Customer Care teams, taking phone calls or visiting communities to discover broken parts, and fixing them as soon as possible. Our goal for “urgent” part replacements, that is, those that completely shut down a business, is 4 days. Recent reports have our teams replacing urgent parts within 4.3 days – not bad for a new program! We are working on closing efficiency gaps to make that even better over time.

As for Team R&D, they are on to new projects! While many of their studies don’t end with such a huge, organizational-wide effect, it is very gratifying for the team when they do. According to Wahab, “I thought this program would help improve Saha water treatment businesses to grow faster, and relieve the stress of broken parts for both the entrepreneurs and Saha staff. So I call it ‘Broken Parts Stress Free.’”

Mutala adds: “This idea is so far the best not just reducing the burden both customer care and the entrepreneurs go through but also to ensure that broken parts are repaired or fixed within the shortest possible time to keep the water business running.”

R&D Supervisor Mutala at Mahamuruyili. The entrepreneurs in this community decided to have a big day of sales to raise funds to enroll in the Maintenance Service Program

10 years with Saha Global: Reflections from Wahab

Posted on November 10, 2020November 18, 2021 by admin

When work anniversaries happen, it’s nice to take a step back and reflect on the years gone by. For Wahab, 2020 marks ten years working with Saha.

Wahab’s first memory of joining Saha is that he actually missed his first meeting! He was supposed to meet Kate in the afternoon one day, but had to attend a funeral with his mother in a village near Kumbungu. He remembers the next day, Kate and Peter drove by in the Saha truck to where he was selling phone credits and invited him to the field the following morning at 5:30 AM. Wahab remembers Kate, Peter, Shak, and TJ all went together to Nyanguripe, and he learned about what Saha did by listening to Peter lead the community meeting. After that, Wahab worked with Kate and TJ to implement the business. Then, Kate went back to the U.S., and Wahab and Peter implemented a new business in Mile 40.

At the time, there were only 5 Saha villages, but he vividly remembers visiting Wambong to learn about how the system worked for the first time. He recalls, “I was so impressed, and learning about the solution gave me motivation. Before I joined Saha, I always wanted to help my people, but I didn’t know how. Some people are teachers, some are policemen, some are soldiers – all do their work to help the nation. We have a water problem – it’s one of the biggest challenges we have. When I saw the clean water business, my feelings were such such deep love, I saw the work was so good and it would change a lot of lives.” Wahab has a personal connection to the clean water problem: his mother suffered from guinea worm multiple times when he was a child, and he remembers having to help care for her during those times.

The Global Leadership Program (GLP) arrived in January 2011, and Wahab implemented with his first of many teams of field representatives in Chani. To this day, he says, “Whenever I visit there, there is still energy in that community. I implemented both solar and water there, so to me it is my own community. My own home village.”

Working with the Saha has also given Wahab opportunities to travel beyond just villages for work. Some of his favorite memories are accompanying visiting field reps to tourist sites like Mole National Park and Kintampo Falls. When Saha won a UNDP grant, Wahab went to Accra with Morganne to receive the award. One of the most exciting trips was to TedXAccra, when the whole team traveled to Accra to support Kate as she spoke.

Much has changed at Saha in 10 years. First and foremost, the name! When Wahab started, it was “Community Water Solutions.” The name Saha means a lot of things in Dagbanli – time, luck, opportunity. He says, “the name has potential – it is a spiritual name. It’s a powerful name.” Whenever he meets new hires at Saha who have anxiety about their future prospects, he reassures them, don’t worry – Saha is a place where your luck, your opportunity can take you far.

Back in 2010, there were just 4, then 5 employees: now, he can’t even count how many work at Saha! He’s seen a lot of organizations and projects come and go in Tamale, but none that look like Saha. “Saha is there to change our lives – my life, the people’s lives. Anyone who works with Saha: their life is changed.”

So what’s still the same, all these years later? “We change things easily – we try new things, if it doesn’t work, then we change again. Saha changes a lot, we are flexible! We like trying new things and new skills. But the bad roads never change! We will always be riding our bikes on those bad roads every day!”

Finally, reflecting on ten years with Saha, Wahab says, “We thank God coming from where we started to here. The organization has not left me behind. I’m a supervisor, I’m part of the management team. When I look at that, I know I accomplished something real.”

Thank you, Peter!

Posted on October 22, 2018 by admin

*Delivering the polytank to our 3rd-ever business in Jarigu*

Today on the blog, we are taking some time to highlight and bid a fond farewell to Saha’s first full-time Ghana team member, Peter. Peter has worked with us since 2008, when Saha Global was just an idea, and we implemented the second water business in Nymaliga. In many ways, Peter is co-founder of Saha Global and we would not be where we are today without him. We are so excited to see what the future has in store for him, and today we want to revisit some of our favorite memories of Peter’s time with Saha.

Over the years, Peter worked on every project under the hot Tamale sun! He implemented clean water businesses in countless villages, and went above and beyond to fulfil the Saha mission. He even made Saha’s first radio appearance!

It is through Peter that we met many of our current full-time staff, translators, and taxi drivers, including Wahab, Eric, Nestor, Simply, and Taufik (to name a few!) Many of our teammates fondly refer to him as “Father Peter.”

In addition to our work together in the villages, Peter has gone on many traveling adventures as a member of Saha’s leadership team. The first, and one of the most notable, was Kate and Peter’s trip to Kumasi in 2010 to buy a truck for Saha. This story was made famous (or infamous?) in Kate’s 2013 Tedx talk. It was certainly a trip to remember!

A few years later, Peter joined Kate and Kathryn on scouting missions to our neighboring countries Burkina Faso and Togo, while we were searching for new areas for Saha to work. While none of us spoke French well, Kate and Kathryn remembered a few words from high school French class and it was fun to turn the tables and have to translate for Peter after years of having him translate Dagbani for us! We will always remember the delicious roadside salads, long days in the truck, and hilarious French conversations on that trip!

*Exploring our francophone neighbors Burkina Faso and Togo*

After that trip, Peter was charged with setting up our office in Salaga, and piloted the first Salaga Saha business in Tunga with Kate and Kathryn in 2012. Peter also led all of the preparations for two Global Leadership Programs based in Salaga during 2013.

*Opening the first Salaga Saha business in Tunga*

Since then, Peter has split his time between Tamale and Salaga, holding down the fort at our Salaga office: monitoring our seven Salaga villages and scouting for many more communities to be implemented in the future.

*Peter and 2013 Field Reps Carole Anne, Lilly and Caroline celebrating opening day in Kideng*

We’ve experienced so much together over the past 10 years. Exciting opportunities for Saha, growing friendships, expanding families, and so much more!

We are so grateful for Peter’s 10-plus years of hard work and service, and can’t wait to see what the future holds! Ti pagya pom, Peter!

Saha builds better businesses!

Posted on September 28, 2018September 28, 2018 by admin

This summer, Sahayili continued to work hard to make sure our water businesses are working well. One way we have approached this was by pursuing empowerment of all of our team to have a solid baseline of financial training. This type of knowledge is something that we all need to have as we navigate through life, and regardless of whether you visit sites like https://kryptoszene.de/kryptowaehrungen-investieren/ to learn about cryptocurrency, or if you need to understand how saving money can help with your own personal financial situation, it all adds up. If we expect our entrepreneurs in the field to know how to set a price to the water they sell and the plan for the aquatabs they buy, we have to make sure we are sending monitors who are excellent with finances! To help with their knowledge, they can consider reading this article on financial terms so they are up to date with what we need.

This was one of our first experience in conducting a full staff training “in-house”. Overall, it was enjoyable and valuable and the team felt that it was definitely worth missing one day in the field to strengthen our own skills. Our training was a mixing pot of learning about core concepts, math, design, and general professional development, facilitated by our fearless math leaders Rhiana and Kathryn. But enough of the overview– let’s get into the details of the day!

The first part of our workshop dealt with this big question of “why do we set up water businesses” and we had a great conversation where staff was able to relay a deep understanding of how finances relate to sustainability. Staff shared out that business is important so that the women who run them can earn money and buy materials, cover the cost of the treatment process, and that by not just giving a Saha treatment center as a gift, we are actually empowering these women to have ownership of their water centers and motivating them to care for their own communities in a real and tangible way. Some may still need help from personal loans down the line with their finances, but hopefully this will kickstart positivity in their lives. We waded into the hard stuff and identified current challenges that our team is having, took a baseline quiz to see where we could all improve our understanding of Saha’s model, and ran example calculations of prices that we need to be able to do in the field.

For upcoming new Saha hires having a serious case of FOMO, have no fear! This session was so successful that we will continue to lay the same foundation with all new members of the Saha family.

After we thoroughly refreshed with some snacks and stretching, we did some math. We have to commend the staff members for sticking it out and doing something that was unfamiliar and rather long. They approached what could have been boring content with full excitement and were engaged the whole time. We did a “pair and share” method of doing some math calculations with a teammate because we all know there is strength in numbers and sometimes you just need to talk the problem out.

We ended the day with a really fun design challenge, addressing the question of how we improve our entrepreneur’s business skills when we meet with them to check in. We brainstormed and no ideas were off limits. We were encouraged to think about physical tools we could create, digital mockups, and acted out skits with our new ideas. We look forward to doing more exercises like these in the future!

– Becky W.
Labariga Field Rep ’17, Saha Summer US Volunteer

Thank you Shak!

Posted on August 7, 2018 by admin

Today we would like to highlight a special member of the Saha Family for his years of dedication and service with Saha: Ibrahim Shakool! Shak is leaving the Saha team after 9 years of amazing service. He has worked for Saha since 2009 and has help build our organization what it is today. We are so excited for Shak’s future endeavors and also want to take some time to share some of our favorite memories from the past 9 years.

In the early years at Saha, Shak did it all – from opening new water businesses to finding Saha’s first office in Tamale, to teaching us everything we needed to know about life in northern Ghana. Everyone in Tamale knows Shak and once someone figures out that you are a “friend of Shak” they will help you with anything. This is because Shak has helped so many people. He will do anything for his friends and family, and you become his friend the moment he meets you!

Throughout the years, Shak has really done a little bit of everything to help Saha. He started as a translator when we were a small but mighty team of 3 and quickly moved on to help implement and monitor villages on his own. He then helped to launch our solar program and became our resident solar expert. He was a translator for countless Global Leadership Programs and a favorite face for many Field Reps. For a short time he served as the Director of Ghana Operations while juggling full time monitoring! He would take on every task we asked of him and did his best to get it done. No task was too big for Shak.

Kate and Shak getting ready to great the 2015 Summer Field Reps

For many years, Shak would be the first face that our Field Reps would encounter as they exited the airport. His excitement and enthusiasm were infectious and the perfect introduction to the inviting hospitality of Ghanaian culture. So many of our Field Reps say that Shak’s big, friendly smile made them feel right at home. From Dagbani lessons to leading lost field reps to opening a water center, his passion for the work he does always shines through.

This past year Shak has supported our new batch of monitors to grow and shine. He also opened 5 new water businesses, bringing clean water to almost 3,000 people. In between implementations, he would step in when we needed to visit piped villages, get a metal stand replaced, or monitor villages when when a colleague was sick.

What are next steps for Shak? He is excited to see the new generation of Saha staff grow. Meanwhile he has grand plans of being a yellow-yellow driver and opening up his own restaurant in Tamale. We are trying to convince him to name the restaurant “Shak’s Shak,” but it is still in the works.

To say that our team at Saha is like a family is an understatement. We care about each other as much as we care about the work that we do. The dedication that our term puts into their work is outstanding and an integral part in the success of any Saha Water Business. Shak will always be an important part of our Saha family! Shak – Thank you for your years of service to Saha. You will be greatly missed and we know you are going to do great things!

Rainy Season 2018 Reflections

Posted on July 19, 2018July 20, 2018 by admin

2018 has been incredibly busy, but in all the best ways! We are more than mid-way through this year, so it is the perfect time to look back and assess our accomplishments. Amidst the busy pace of the Global Leadership Program, our full time staff continued business as usual in our Ghana office (where business as usual is working extremely hard and doing amazing things). The skies have become cloudier, the days cooler, and the roads wetter as rainy season starts to pick up here in Tamale. This is a perfect time to pause and reflect on the year so far and the incredible things the team has been able to do.

During this time of muddy shoes, wet roads, and once-dry dugouts brimming with water, we have decided to put implementations and scouting on hiatus until the start of the dry season. Businesses during rainy season are understandably very slow in many communities because any family with a tin roof is collecting rainwater at this time and doesn’t need to buy additional drinking water as frequently. We found that it is best for new businesses to start off strong during the dry season, when demand for clean water is much higher. Additionally, during the rainy season the roads can be difficult or impossible to traverse (especially the unfamiliar ones that our scouters venture on)! For scouting new villages, the rainy season makes it a challenge to accurately assess access to clean water, since there is an abundance of water right now. So it makes the most sense to take a little break from implementation and scouting. Fret not, we still have plenty of other activities for our staff to work on during this time: Annual Surveys, Updated Household Lists, Children’s Educations, Research & Development, etc. There is never a dull day in the Saha world and there is always more to be done! Continuous improvement!

First, I’d like to have a shout out to the Scouting Team. Without them, we wouldn’t have found the villages we implemented in this past year. Our goal was to scout 100 potential villages this year and we are at 93 already! We’ve scouted and mapped nearly every village within a 3-hour moto-drive-radius from Tamale. Incredible! Coming out of the rainy season, we will see if there are any ‘hidden’ villages out there yet to discover!

With our Implementation Team we are able to implement new businesses in more villages at a faster rate outside of the Global Leadership Program. Our slogan for this year is “18 for 18!”, or in other words, 18 Saha team-led implementations for the 2018. For anyone keeping track, with 10 GLP villages that will bring us to 28 new villages this year! In the first half of the year, this mighty team has implemented 9 new water businesses, half of our goal!. Since this is our first time having an Implementation Team, we are still working out many details and it can only get better with each iteration. We developed an Implementation Handbook for the team to reference during their implementations. There is a lot to remember, especially for just one person.

Some lessons learned so far in our first year of implementation team:

Having someone come to help during distributions helps a lot! The days can be long and we want to make sure that Implementers continue to have the same energy and enthusiasm in household 1 as they do in household 101.
The implementation book is helpful to remember all the little details that goes into implementing. Always check at the end of the day if there was anything you’ve forgotten to do. The larger pictures in the handbook are a favorite feature for pitching the idea to the community, and the laminated pages make them more durable.
We can take our time training the women. If we don’t think they understood it the first time, it is okay to go over it again, and again if needed. We aren’t in the time constraints of the GLP, so we have the freedom of a more flexible schedule.
For larger communities it is okay to have more than one opening days! It’s better to plan ahead for them, so people don’t show up and leave with empty buckets.
Implementation Team Handbook: A new tool to help us bring the cleanest water to all of Northern Ghana!

Below is a summary of all the new communities implemented by our team this year and the women entrepreneurs we’ve introduced to the Saha Family!

Village Name:	Implementer	Opening Date	Population	Who are the entrepreneurs?
Sinsina	Shak	1 Feb 4, 2018	466	Naana and Asana
Buiyili	Shak	2 Mar 12, 2018	695	Salamatu, Mariama & Nafidah
Sahanaayili	Eric	2 Mar 12, 2018	206	Rukaya, Zenabu, Ayishetu, Abibata, & Sadia
Tibugu	Wahab	3 Apr 12, 2018	936	Samata, Arahanatu, Barikisu and Zenab
Nagbuligu	Shak	3 Apr 23, 2018	1250	Fati,Azara,ikma,and sadia
Jagbo Tindang	Eric	3 Apr 27, 2018	763	Fusseini Fusseina,Issahaku Asiya,Mohammed Zainabu and Sulemana Fatima
Wala Mogli	Wahab	4 May 25, 2018	299	Samata, Adishetu, Fatima and Asana
Tunga Daborpe	Shak	4 May 28, 2018	223	Rashida,Ayisha,Asana,Rabi and Maina.
Nangbagu	Shak	5 Jun 19, 2018	255	Memunatu1 , Memunatu 2,Rahama,Adija and Mariam.
Kpalsogu kuraa	Eric	5 Jun 2, 2018	479	Ibrahim Atika,Haruna Salamatu, Sulemana Amatu,Baba Fatima,Abdulai Agatha,Kpanalan Awabu, Yussif Sanatu,Aku Amina, Mohammed Hawabu.

Here are some photos from the past 7 months of work by our Implementation team:

Long lines at Jagbo Tindang’s opening day!

Making the first sale ever in Tunga Daporbe!

Washing buckets on opening day in Wala Mogli

Now these communities are being monitored weekly by our Monitoring team who is helping to provide additional support and training for the women entrepreneurs and communities. There have been small but impactful improvements from the Office that has made managing all three teams more, for lack of a better word, manageable! To updated expense reports to gas cards, all these little things add up to big changes and allowed us to be able to have the capacity to do more. We are currently preparing different workshops to help build our team’s knowledge and skills sets: Financial Training, Human-Centered Design, and Lab Training. These are the ones we’ve already gotten started, and there are still more in the pipeline.

I am so impressed by the hard work of the team and how much we’ve been able to accomplish in this half year alone and I look forward to even more we can do in the second half of 2018!

The future sure is bright here at Saha!

Operations Updates: New staff, new reporting, new ideas!

Posted on May 28, 2018 by admin

If you haven’t already noticed, there have been a lot of changes at Saha in recent months! I am so excited to update you on all of the improvements we’ve had. New staff, new reporting, new ideas!

The team has more than doubled since we last introduced new members. With useful tips from articles we have been reading (Some can be found at this link) we thought recruitment was the best option. We are so happy excited to see what they can do. Here is a brief introduction of all our recent additions. Last February, we said a fond fairwell to Eda and Morganne who have served as Operations Coordinators for over a year here in Ghana. A month later, we said warm hello to the new Operations Coordinator Rhiana Meade who will be working with me (Heidi)! Rhiana was actually a field rep during our previous Winter GLP 2018. She helped open a center with TJ at Nyantag, little did she know that a few months later she would be returning to work full time with us helping implement even more villages.

Here is a brief introduction of Rhiana. She graduated from Reed College in Portland Oregon with a degree in Chemistry and went on to get her Masters at Tufts University in Civil and Environmental Engineering. Previously, she worked for a Field Operations Supervisor for a Cambrian Innovation, a provider of wastewater treatment services. She has been to Ghana even before her field rep days. Her parents lived and worked in Accra for a few years, during which she visited them, found herself a Ghanaian Auntie, and was able to tour around the country. She has works with passion and compassion and can make an amazing Blondie! It been great having her as my counterpart. She was was able to hold down the fort when I went on vacation 2 weeks into her arrival and orientation. We plunged her into the Saha life, and she has done well!

Next to introduce, is someone who took on a completely new role: Director of Operations. We welcomed Theo the same month Rhiana joined on. He was born and raised in Accra and went to Ashesi University to study Business Administration. Prior to Saha Theo worked with Delta and a Start-up called Laundry King – An on demand laundry service. Maybe we can get one of those here in Tamale? Theo is on the search for the best Wache in town, so any recommendations please send them his way. He will be taking over most of the administrative load from Rhiana and myself, so we can focus on optimizing the day to day management of our staff. It’s been helpful having an in-country representative to focus on community relationships and building up the organization for future growth. Since the role is still being formed, he’s been doing an amazing job rolling with whatever we need him to to. Currently, he is going out 3 days a week to get a true feel of how the business run and what Saha does. Since coming, he has been able to witness an implementation through it’s entirety, get incredibly lost scouting, and have difficult conversations with villages facing problems. Way to go Theo for taking on this role with bravery and openness!

Speaking of growth, did you notice, we hired on 5 new full time staff members? All the new staff were our Translators in our Winter 2018 GLP. Much like Rhiana, little did they know that they would become full time staff with us in a few months for the GLP. Now I can’t image the team without them. You can read more on their bios but here is a which overview of our newest members:

Abubakari Asita (aka Sita), she grew up in Tamale and started working with Saha back in 2014 implementing Balamposo. If she sounds familiar to you, you may have recognized her from Women’s week posts. She loves being an inspiration to little girls in the villages she visits.

Alhassan Seidu was trained under Eric who would often take him out in the field monitoring and implementing. Now he can do that on his own as a full time staff. Seidu always shoos away the goats that wander into the Saha Office. Outside of Monitoring, Seidu is a skilled electrician and helps us with any electrical needs we encounter at the office.

Ziblila Mohammed Taufik has been part of 3 Global Leadership Programs. His first implementation was Baiyili. Prior to Saha Taufik used to teach ICT, but now he enjoys seeing the clear water being scooped into the PT at the water centers.

Amenyeku Dzorsah started as a translator for GLP. His first implementation was Changbuni. Prior to monitoring, Dzorsah was a taxi driver in tamale. Now he gets work with the women entrepreneurs, talk to people during household visits about clean water, and drive a moto everyday instead of a taxi. I haven’t asked him which he prefers yet!

Sulemana Tijani has known and worked with Saha in its very early stages with Shak and Kate. His first GLP village was Yapei-Yipela. Prior to Saha he worked at Melcom (the Tamale equivalent of Walmart) and drove a taxi. Now he can bring clean water to his country and work with other likeminded individuals.

A larger team has allowed us to expand and focus! So starting in January, we divided up into 3 Distinct teams: Scouting, Monitoring, and Implementation. We divided up the team based on their interests, but there is the possibility of movement across teams if desired. For now, everyone is doing an amazing job in each of their teams. Because we have focussed teams, we can have more direct goals to achieve. For the scouting team, our goal is map our all the villages within a 3 hr driving radius around Tamale, start plotting Salaga villages, and determine “Yes” villages. Our Monitoring team’s goal is to make sure our current villages are getting the support that is needed and to find ways to improve our implementations and trainings. Constant improvement is our motto! Our Implementation Team allows us to implement villages outside of our Global Leadership Program, which means we can reach more villages each year. It also helps us use what we learn from the monitoring team, to refine and perfect our implementations and trainings. I have been so impressed with how the team has handled the transition.

Most of the team (minus Rhiana who took the photo and Peter who was in Salaga at the time)

You’ll see below, I’ve added a *Bonus* Team. These are our part time staff that also have been doing great work for us in the past few months. Blessing, a former translator for the GLP, is now helping us build relationships with the Districts, so we can connect our villages needs to gov’t bodies. Mutala is our newest addition to the team, he and Blessing have been doing research for Kathryn to help improve our knowledge of water consumption. Kathryn has big plans for the research team, look out for her update!

Scouting: Amin, Peter

Monitoring: Simply, Nestor, Sita, Seidu, Taufik, TJ

Implementation: Wahab, Eric, Shak

Blessing our District Liason and Researcher

Bonus (part time) Teams:

District Liason: Blessing

Researcher: Mutala

The increase in staff was only made manageable by the addition of this amazing data organizing tool we started using called mWater. With mWater we are able to take surveys, plot points, and collect data all through an application on our phones. Once the phone is connected to the internet, this information is synced and can be stored and analysed online. We piloted it in November and fully launched it in December, however since we are still in the learning phase, there have been several iterations and updates to how we collect data. This has been a game changing addition to the day to day work. We can say goodbye to the endless amounts of paper used and manually inputting information into excel. I am excited to see what we can do with mWater and will update you more on this in a separate post!

Welp! If you felt like that was a lot to take it, it was!!! Thanks for reading through this “brief” update. If you want to hear about anything more in detail, leave us a comment!

Go team go!

Heidi

Amarraba to Heidi!

Posted on December 7, 2017 by admin

This December, Heidi Ayran joined the Saha team as our new Operations Coordinator. Heidi will be will be working with the team to continue insuring all Saha community businesses are running effectively and supporting development and expansion as Saha pushes to reach more communities. Say hello to Heidi:

Me after helping build Jangbarayili’s solar center!

Hi, I’m Heidi and like all others on the Saha Team I have a passion for clean water for all! I got to celebrate graduating with a degree in Civil & Environmental Engineering from UC Berkeley (Go Bears!) by participating in Saha’s Summer 2015 Global Leadership Program. It was an amazing experience to be able to implement a solar business in Jangbaryili with Team Jaleel, which has stuck with me to this day!

Working with Saha showed me how effective simple solutions could be and how important is was to invest time into getting to know the people. A quality that really stood out to me was that Saha’s ultimate goal is to have these villages self-sustaining. Give a village a clean water solution, sustain them for some time. Give a village the understanding of the importance of clean water and how to get it, sustain them for a lifetime!

After the program, I worked as a Project Engineer for a General Contractor in SF and built high rise residential buildings. However, I soon realized that my passions were not being fueled my current position, so I decided to change that. I saw that Saha was hiring a new Operations Coordinator and I seized the opportunity. I was drawn (twice!) to Saha not only because of their passion for clean water, but their passion for people. Saha is overflowing with it! I look forward to see how I can contribute and collaborate to such a great cause and where the new year will take the Saha Team!