water, sanitation, AIDS

Hey lovies!

Hono ndyam laabdal woni?

I attended a USAID/PEPAM meeting the other day with a couple other volunteers in Kolda. Its the first time both organizations are reaching out in order to collaborate. We discussed and brain stormed how us volunteers can help USAID meet the millenium access goal where 65% of Senegal is certified in clean water and sanitation. Right now the numbers are at 17% in sanitation standards and 37% of the country has access to clean water. There are only 5 sewage treatment facilities in all of Senegal with 12 million people using them, operating at 500-600% capacity. When the facilities are overworked, all other waste ends up in the fields, streets, etc. Not to mention the lack of education when it comes to sanitation and behavior change. You find many of villagers going to the bathroom right out in the open, being as how open air defecation is one of the major problems with illness and disease. Along with that, 30% of water production in Senegal is lost because of poor irrigation systems. That's about 3 billion dollars in water bills that people can't pay.

I see these issues first hand in my village. The local water tower and the river that used to serve as the main water source has been dried up for years. There were about 50 spickets installed by some NGO in the past, but these technologies often break down with no one to fix them and no education for the locals on how to prevent this or sustain it. I felt overwhelmed for a long time with the thought that this was too big of a problem to fix and water access was prohibiting other projects like community gardens and tree planting.

After attending this meeting, I learned that USAID is in fact starting to work in Mampatim for a 60 day period now until the beginning of April, finally fixing the water tower, the irrigation system, and installing 11 new spickets attached to 300 households. Yayy! My part will be to get the community to understand and be enthused about what's going on as well as to contribute materials and labor.

I will be attending another training seminar to learn about their "Community Lead Total Sanitation" program. This is designed to end open air defecation and teach the community how to organize themselves and be responsible for behavior change. With USAID/PEPAM working in Mampatim now, I hope to fix the health post latrine, install two Erobon pumps in the schools, and work with each individual compound on sanitation education while building homemade hand washing stations in each compound. This will be our first efforts to incorporate our projects in with theirs and work together on a hybrid approach.

Two days ago, my friend Jenae was doing an AIDS awareness day in Diaobe, the largest market in West Africa where huge crowds of people come to buy and trade goods from all over. This sounds wonderful, but unfortunately Diaobe has some of the highest rates of AIDS and prostitution in the country. Jenae and I, and a couple other volunteers walked around all morning passing out condoms and quizzing random people on their knowledge of AIDS. We even had a local theatre group come out and perform skits about AIDS and safe sex. Across the street we had free testing at the health post where about 30 people came to get tested.

A little update on the Awa talk at school: so Awa is the most amazing Senegalese woman in the world. It was no surprise to me when my middle schoolers were incredibly engaged as she talked to them about early marriage, teenage pregnancy, and the importance of education.

Almost 300 young people came out to hear her speak. She's a force to be reckoned with, and it’s always gratifying to see her stand up as a strong woman figure for young girls. Hopefully the discussion was effective and hopefully it sparked some interest for the school to finally begin the girl’s club meetings.
All and all, I'd say it was a successful week!