By Philip Tengzu
Kalahi, (UW/R), March 8, GNA – The Sahara Advocates for Change (SAC), through the US Ambassador’s Special Self-Help (SSH) programme, has commissioned a hand-held borehole for Kalahi community to save them from the challenges of accessing water for domestic use.
The US Ambassador’s SSH programme provided USD4,100.00 in funding for the SAC to execute the project for the community.
The project, dubbed: “Safe Water for Kalahi”, was to provide potable water for drinking, cooking and bathing as well as reduce water-borne diseases in the community.
It would also help reduce the difficulties women and girls in the community go through daily to provide water for their families.
The community, hitherto, relied on self-dugouts at a stream, distant from the settlement, to get water for domestic use without worrying about its cleanliness and, thus, saw the intervention by the NGO and its partner as a great relief.
Madam Joyce Bamaraju, a resident, said they trekked to distant streams to dig before they could get water to fetch.
“During the dry season, we suffer a lot before getting water. Some women sleep at the stream. The streams are far from the community.
We go there, dig and wait for some time before we can fetch. Sometimes you can go there at dawn and return in the afternoon”, she explained.
Also, Loretta Siefie, a basic six pupil at the community, said some of her colleagues had dropped out of school because of the water challenge.
“We don’t get water early to bathe and go to school and because of that, we go to school late.
The prefects punish us when we go late and because of that some of my colleagues have stopped schooling”, she explained.
Some young men also said ladies refused to marry in the Kalahi community due to the lack of potable water sources at the community.
The residents, therefore, expressed gratitude to SAC and the US government for the intervention which they said would meaningfully impact their lives.
Madam Sapphire Carrington, a representative of the US Ambassador to Ghana, Ambassador Virginia Palmer, said the Kalahi community was one of the seven communities that were competitively selected to benefit from the programme out of over 300 applications received in 2023.
He explained that the choice of Kalahi community was premised on the self-support, and commitment of the community members towards the project and commended them for their support throughout the project execution.
She encouraged the community members to maintain the borehole for future generations to benefit from it.
Madam Lina Beneb, the Programme Manager for SAC, said the facility would serve about 1,700 people in the community.
The Ghana News Agency (GNA) spotted two boreholes at the community but they were not producing water due to the deep water table of the community.
Madam Beneb said the borehole was drilled 95 meters deep “to make sure it won’t dry in the driest months of the dry season.”
She said SAC was a non-profit organisation established in 2018 to engage hard-to-reach communities in Ghana with its interventions to impact the lives of people who need help.
It was aimed to empower women, girls and other vulnerable groups through capacity enhancement in functional literacy.
It also worked in the areas of water and sanitation, health care, environmental protection and conservation and livelihood diversification in the remote areas of Ghana to contribute to nation-building.
Mr Naa Saateen, the Chief of Kalahi, expressed gratitude to the benefactors for the intervention and said they would maintain it to live its expected lifespan and to benefit the people, especially school children.
“I pray that God will bless you so that you will continue to help many communities that are in need,” he said.
GNA