Damankunyili Gets Clean Water
Earlier this month, a staggering two hundred community members came out to dig trenches for a water pipe project. Now completed, the inlayed pipe system delivers clean, safe water to the four thousand people who live within the precincts of Damankunyili village. After two days of arduous digging and another two to install the pipes, community members were able to use the water.
Luckily for Damankunyili, we worked with a private contractor to supply and implement the project, speeding up the process considerably. Conversely, as with the piping project in Dungu, Government-led initiatives are often delayed with ample red-tape concerns. Quotes and materials are delivered at a snails pace, if at all.
Residents of Damankunyili were overjoyed when the water started flowing from the pipes for the first time. This joyful welcoming underscores the tenuous and time consuming practices that most in the developing world must undertake to retrieve water from oft’ times less than potable sources. The water gushing from these pipes travels from and is purified by a treatment plant operated by Ghana Water Company.
Depending on geographical and economic contexts, other methods such as boreholes and wells are used to procure a village with clean water. Boreholes are good because the ground water is usually cleaner and safer than the open water they fetch from ponds and such, but they are often dry because of the lack of ground water. Therefore the pipes were a suitable match for Damankunyili due to their proximity to a treatment facility and other factors. We are delighted to know that some modest funding combined with a community’s passion has resulted in clean water for all for the foreseeable future.
