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drought sets in the stream shrinks, and villagers have to walk ten minutes to another
stream.
There are no latrines in the village. The people practise open defecation which will
eventually serve to pollute the stream, if it has not already done so.
The Dagasin stream is shown in the picture below.
Health
The nearest clinic is at Asubusu or Ejura
Hospital. We were told that the most
widespread sicknesses included malaria
and stomach or chest pains and that the
villagers suffered diarrhoea several times
a week during the dry season. Worse
still, one baby in every five died before
age ten of water-related disease.
We noticed that a few of the young
children appeared to be suffering from
worms, but far less than we had seen in similar villages.
Education
The community organise an 'under tree' kindergarten with a volunteer teacher for the
infants. Children from about eight years of age are considered strong enough to walk to
Samari Nkwanta school.
The community estimated that of the population of three hundred, about five could read and
write, and most could count to three hundred. Four people from the village had attended
secondary school.
Institutions
There is a Committee of Chief and Elders, and a village parish council. Until recently, the
law provided that every village should have an elected Unit Committee to share
responsibility with the hereditary Chief and Elders. However the last government decided
that every three or four villages should share a Unit Committee, each providing a
proportionate number of members who must all be members of the government’s political
party.
This decision caused mayhem. The new Unit Committee contained too few members to
cater for all the villages’ needs, while long-standing members who were members of the
opposition party were outraged at being thrown off, often after years of devoted service.
Mosi-Kura village, which struck us as being eminently sensible and well-managed, had set
up their own, seven member, apolitical, Development Committee to carry out the functions
of the original Unit Committee. This worked well, and the village was clean and tidy. It had
good relationships with the Chief and Elders, and with the local assemblyman (similar to the
local authority councillor) who lived in another village but visited occasionally.