Gradually, the Link is making a big difference to the sanitation situation in our partner schools. Richard Homewood writes:
Model Baptist School, Grafton, and REC Maynard are the latest schools to benefit from the Schools’ Sanitation Project.
Model Baptist School, Grafton is the latest school to benefit from the Schools’ Sanitation Project, with a deeper well, water tower and new pumping system, providing a regular water supply to the school. The Schools’ Sanitation Project is one of the Link’s long-term projects, launched in 2019.
Clean water, basic toilets and good hygiene practices are essential for the survival and development of children. According to UNICEF, every day, over 800 children die, worldwide, from preventable diseases caused by the lack of these basic facilities. It is acknowledged that Sub Saharan Africa, which includes Sierra Leone, lags far behind other continents in addressing the problem. In Sierra Leone the lack of these basic facilities in our twinned schools is impacting on their education and their futures.
Children often miss out on education because they spend hours every day collecting water and are exhausted if and when they get to school. Many older girls have to miss school on a regular basis due to the lack of menstrual hygiene facilities. Whilst we can’t tackle the problem in the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa, we can improve the prospects for the future of children in the schools we are twinned with in Hastings, Sierra Leone by ensuring they have a sustainable water supply, good basic sanitation and hygiene facilities.
The Link carried out a survey of the schools establish what facilities they had. The report of that survey can be seen here: WASH report on schools.
This is a huge project and we have been working with other established organisations in Sierra Leone and the individual schools to plan how we can improve the facilities and give the children a better chance for the future.
It was been agreed that the first priority was to ensure each school has a sustainable water supply. Phase one began with the first four schools being provided with funding to connect to a piped water supply or to improve their wells and pumping facilities. St. Mulumba, Kankalay, REC Hastings and Jui Upper School were in phase one, started just before Covid.
Phase two began last summer and includes the Model Baptist school in Grafton, REC Maynard and REC Kossoh Town. After a delay to allow the water table to fall to enable them to dig the wells deeper, work is now under way again and the school at Grafton was the first to be completed and handed over to the Head Teacher at the end of last week (week commencing 7 April 2024).
Work has continued and on Monday this week, (14 April 2024) the work at REC Maynard was also completed and handed over to the Head Teacher. More photos are shown below.
The team has now moved on to REC Kossoh Town to deepen the well and install a new tank and pump, which will complete phase 2 of the project to provide sustainable water supplies in our twinned schools.
Our thanks go to Kainde Pearce in Hastings SL who has been organising and supervising the team doing the work and to Yvette Johnson of the Hastings Sierra Leone Association in the UK, who has been liaising with Kainde and assisting with the coordination of the project.
Further updates will be provided as the work progresses.
Photos of the work at Grafton and REC Maynard – click to open a slideshow
