Nyinampong is lucky enough to have found a donor to ‘mechanise’ its borehole The water will be pumped up by electricity into overhead tanks, and then it can be accessed by simply turning on a tap. The photos show the overhead platforms which the tanks will sit on. There’s a road down the middle of the village, so there will be fetching points either side of it. No need for anyone cross the road.
The photo shows the school we’ve just built for the little farming village of Esereso and the homemade structure that served as a school before.
When the Chief first learned that we were offering to build a school, he made a long speech. He said that now he wished he was a child again. His generation were living in poverty because they never went to school. Things would be so much better for today’s children, he said. The assemblyman wept.
The school will accommodate 120 children who are not yet old enough to walk the 6km to school at Kwamang, and 6km back. Without it, young children are already far behind with their school work before they apply to Kwamang, and the school there will not accept them.
This week, a geophysics team visited the villages of Timber Nkwanta, Asarenkwanta and Nyankomam. They managed to locate good places to drill for water in each village, but the question remains as to whether the water is too deep. If not, all three villages will have their own boreholes in a week or two.
The man in the photo is the chief of Asare Nkwanta, who stayed with the drillers all day.
Lock-down has been lifted in Ghana, not least because of so many people need to go to their farms if they are to eat. That aside, Ghana seems to have got off lightly from Covid19, with under 100 deaths – though so many people are innumerate that it’s hard to have confidence in the figures.
Earlier this week Ashanti Development organised a communal meeting at Nyinampong where, as shown in the photos, everyone observed social distancing. We explained we needed to do a pump test on their borehole to see if there was enough water in it to allow us to mechanise. The pump test was agreed and carried out, and everyone was overjoyed to find the borehole had more than enough water to justify mechanisation.
We’ve just bought the surgical equipment shown in the photo for Mampong Maternity Hospital, who are telling us how grateful they are. In fact we did nothing but buy the equipment and we’re very grateful to the Christadelphians who donated the money in the first place.
For some time now, we’ve been asking for donations to renovate and re-equip the hospital. In view of coronavirus, this now seems a particularly good idea.
The village of Nkwanta has just been asked whether they would like household latrines and hygiene training – and they jumped at the chance. The funding has been donated in memory of one of our three founders, David Williamson, who first explained to us why it was so important for communities to have these.
Asasebonsu is a remote village of settlers, who’ve recently walked south from the Sahara to escape the effects of climate change. The village has a school, but the teachers have to sleep in their classrooms and only untrained people apply.
We’re building teachers’ accommodation – three bedrooms, two latrines and a bathroom – and hoping that trained teachers will queue up for jobs in Asasebonsu when the building’s finished.
The school we’re building at Esereso, a new settler village in Ashanti, is nearly finished thanks to the generosity of our funders from KTCT.
Thanks to all the volunteers, friends and donors who came to our networking meeting yesterday, and thanks to Softwire, the computer programmers, for hosting us.
