📌🌍Ghana(formerly Swaziland)
Our partner in Ghana, James Solomon Mensah, has a saying that he says all the time, “Water is Life!” Today I had the opportunity to see the truth of that statement firsthand.
Today we traveled to 3 villages where your generosity has moved through ACHI to fund wells, provide high protein meals, and provide medical care.
The first village is a series of small one room mud huts with thatched roofs and with a single low voltage power line supplying the village. There are no jobs except during harvest, no schools, no medical clinics and no shops. It is not even fair to describe this village as subsistence farmers, because there is no top soil so nothing can grow without extensive fertilizer which is beyond villagers ability to access. And due to the war in Ukraine, even if they could afford to buy fertilizer it is unavailable, leaving the whole country unsure if they may miss an entire harvest season.
The village elders came out to meet us upon our arrival and they smiled from ear to ear as they shared about the wonderful gift that they now have – clean water from a borehole that was drilled a few months ago. The elders told of how everyone in the village used to have to walk to the muddy hole where animals also drank and defecated in order to have water. But now they could access as much clean water as they needed through a mechanical hand pump. They sent their gratitude to you again and again in our time together.
The elders also shared about how access to clean water combined with traveling nurses (which ACHI has also helped to fund) has reduced illness in the village. Water borne diseases and other treatable diseases are on the decline. Cholera, Typhoid and Malaria which had claimed the lives of many villagers in the past were decreasing.
The most touching part of this village was the number of orphans that are being cared for by the community.
Within this village of 200 people, there are at least 30 orphans.
These children are cared for by grandmothers and kind hearted community members who see it as their responsibility to care for them. Though these kind caregivers have nothing to give (truly), they care for vulnerable children in their midst with anything and everything that they have.
Water is life. It is a game changer in this village.
With access to clean water, the community is free to dream about the future. Access to water brings a whole host of new interventions that could be implemented using the strengths of villagers to strengthen the at-risk families and care for the orphans in this village.
Water and food have opened a gate of opportunity for us to meet these deeper needs of orphans and at-risk families. Father, give us wisdom in how you would have us respond.
Today I travelled to Lundzi village, 15 miles outside of the capital city of Mbabane. Within those 15 miles the landscape changes dramatically from an urban center with asphalt roads to rough, rutted dirt roads that would prove impassible during the rains.
