Training on water and sanitation

On Wednesday and Thursday a training on "Water and Sanitation" took place in Guabuliga. The reason is that three is a big problem with water in Guabuliga. BRAVEAURORA took some water samples from the wells where the community members fetch their water every day, to Tamale to the "Water Research Institute" - with an larming outcome. the wells are highly contaminated with different bacteria, e.g. faecal bacteria. This is the same water the people use for washing, bathing cooking and even drinking - on a daily basis.
Some years ago the government provided Guabuliga with a high level water tank and a pumping system - working with power. The community members had problems to pay the light bills though...and some years ago the transformer blew. Since then the people only could go to these contaminated wells.
BRAVEAURORA did a lot of research and decidet to change the entire system into solar power, so that the community will have clean and safe water in the future. Since BRVEAURORA always works in the most sustainable way, the community has to be involved in this project from the beginning on. After all, the project is for the community, who should run the system and also implement a good money collecting system; so that they are, in case of repairs, able to do it - without the involvement of BRAVEAURORA.

To be ble to reach these goals, an NGO from Bolgatanga  - Rural Aid - was invited. They are experts in water and sanitation, and came to the community for a two day workshop - which took place on Wednesday, 23rd, and Thursday, 24th of October.

Please see some pictures!

BRAVEAURORA worker Zenabu helped to prepare the venue for the training

BA project manager Severin opens the training - with Baba, BA librarian, as his translator

The group of men - with Chief in teh middle (white clothes)

The group of women - with volunteer Vanessa

 The training was very interactive. At some points the participants recieved some pictures, and had to interpret them.

Dirty environment

 The people who recieved the trainig had different backgrounds: Chief and his elders (one from each section), a woman from each section, the headmasters of the two schools with two teachers each, religious leaders from mosques and churches in Guabuliga, the water board, assembly man, other opinion leaders and some staff of BRAVEAURORA. The reason for this heterogenic group is that they have to forward the message to the whole community - and if they come from different fields, it is more likely that the whole community will get the information - and only then the project will be successful!

Mr. Hamidu, Chiefs brother, explaning some of the pictures

Madam Dahamata, former BA host mother, and water board member

A teacher

One of the elders of Chief

Mr. Gani from Rural Aid, with some long arm ladles - this should help to keep the pot of dringking water clean. With this ladle the people are supposed to fetch water into their drinking cups

A map of Guabuliga was drawn into the sand...

...and each house was represented by a stone...

...and the houses that have a toilet were marked with ash - the number was little compared to all houses. Here we are into the sanitation issues

This is Guabuliga!!

Some of the participants

Since many peopole in the community are illiterates, they have to use their thumb print to sign in the attandance list

The participants helped to write some dos and donts...the list was longer than on the picture though!

Some of the participants - including the BRAVEAURORA project manager

The training was a great success - now we hope that the people continue to take it seriuous, that they start to change their lifestyle concerning sóme sanitation issues, and that the whole knowledge, gained in the workshop, will be tansferred to the whole community. BRAVEAUROA will support them to deliver the message.

Pomade Production and Parents meeting

Dear all,

we want to tell you about our workshop and the parents meeting today. In the morning the women had a workshop and they learned how to make the “pomade”. It is a cream with shea butter. We made this cream with orange pealing, shea butter and the wax of some candles. We had to cook this for a long time untill the colour and the consistency had changed. After that we filled it in some small tubes and now it has to dry for some days. Now all of the women know how to make the “pomade” and they can try it again at home and in future some of them maybe can even sell it on the market.

After this cooking time, we had our parents meeting. The main topic was the Micro Credit Program and how the people can have a sustainable benefit from it -  and not only a one-time benefit. They had some good ideas how to profit from the credits and we gave them a small “homework”: they have to divide themselves into groups and sit together and think about their business idea.

Pomade production in the old orphanage

Orange pealing: one of the incredients

Finish!

BRAVEAURORA micro credit group with social workers and project manager

Reintegration food

Today the families recieved their reintegration food. In the morning Peter, the BRAVEAURORA farmer, harvested with the parents the maize from the farm. After that, I (Vanessa) helped Suzie and Eklimatu, the BRAVEAURORA social workers, with the distribution of the food. Every family recieved for each child five bowls of rice, four bowls of maize and one bowl of beans per child. We handed out the food to the families in the old orphanage.

After lunch I went back to the old orphanage and Peter, me and some kids put the maize in one room for drying. This was hard work for such a sunny day!

Suzie hands out the food

Teamwork

A parent with two full bowls of maize and beans

Women waiting for their food

I tried my best :)

Vanessa

Hello friends of Braveaurora,

My name is Vanessa, I’m 20 years old and I come from Germany. I’m in Guabuliga since the 30^th of September. I will stay here as a volunteer and after that I want to study social work in Germany. My hobbies are dancing, reading, meeting my friends. At home I went to a dance lesson once a week and I really like to dance also on the weekend. I've never been outside of Europe before, but I think Ghana is a very exciting country, and I’m curious to what I will sample in this time.

In my first week I visited with Suzie, the social worker, two of the reintegration families and it was very exciting to see how they live and how they work in their compound.

At school I visited the quiz competition. It was nice to see how motivated the children are.

All the people here in Guabuliga are very friendly and helpful and I thank Braveaurora that I can gain experience here!