WaterAid Ghana has handed over a solar mechanised water facility to the Sabuli community in the Jirapa Municipality to help alleviate the plight of the people, especially women and girls in accessing water for domestic purposes.
The facility would also supply running water to the Sabuli Health Centre to save the health personnel from the drudgery of having to source water from outside the facility for service delivery, which exposed both the service providers and seekers to infections.
The Guinness Ghana Breweries PLC (GGB PLC) provided funding for the construction of the water facility through its Water for Life programme under the Water Replenishment Strategy as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) interventions and executed by PumpTech.
The GH₵1.3million Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) project would also provide human rights-based sensitization to the community, and sanitation intervention through the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach in six communities in the area.
The project, which is in partnership with the Jirapa Municipal Assembly and Health Directorate, also provided training for the WASH facility management team and procured hand washing basins and other ancillary services.
Speaking at a ceremony at Sabuli during the commissioning, Mr Jesse Danku, the Acting Country Director of WaterAid Ghana, said the intervention would help save the women and girls from spending valuable time in search of water for their families, which affected their economic activities and education.
He observed that though the water was an unalienable basic life necessity, not everybody had access to it hence the need to supplement the government’s efforts in providing potable water to needy communities.
Talking about WASH in health facilities, Mr Danku noted that some pregnant women refused to access skilled delivery at health facilities due to the lack of water at those facilities saying, “Some women have to go home to bath after delivery and then come back to the facility”.
“Through this, we are expected to increase access to about 14,000 people in the Sabuli catchment area.”, he added.
Madam Sylvia Owusu-Ankomah, the Corporate Relations Director of GGB PLC, said the intervention sought to establish a strong relationship with communities from where they sourced their raw material (sorghum) and to help build strong and thriving communities in their operational areas.
“A third of the volume produced from our sites is from operations based in water-stressed areas, and as a drinks company, water is an essential resource and a top business priority.
“The Water for Life programme will give communities a means to sustain themselves over the long term while reducing pressure on key water resources by providing alternatives such as groundwater”, she said.
Mr Nicholas Soyiri, the Jirapa Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), on behalf of the community, expressed gratitude to the GGB PLC and WaterAid Ghana for the WASH intervention but appealed to the benefactors to consider supporting the municipality in other sectors including education and health facilities.
On her part, Madam Florence Angsonmwine, the Jirapa Municipal Director of Health Services, entreated the community and the water facility management team to jealously guard the facility to ensure it served the expected purpose.
Mr Mohammed Amin, the Upper West Regional Manager of PumpTech, noted that the solar system had an efficient operational life span of 25 years if it was well managed.
