Clean water is only the beginning
Sibanor, the main village in Foni Bintang Karanai District in The Gambia, has a population of more than 4,000, but no clean water that is easily accessible to the people. For many years, the people relied upon three hand pumps to produce safe drinking water for this village and its surrounding villages. From as early as 6 a.m. until as late as 10 p.m., the village’s women waited in line for the wells to refill.
But now a water filtration system, called the Water Pyramid, provides these villages with up to 5,000 liters of clean water per day, plenty of water to serve them all. Ding Ding Bantaba Child and Family Support Association and ChildFund Gambia succeeded in getting the water project grant funded by World Bank through a Dutch organization. Here’s how it works: During the rainy season, the outside of the pyramid is used to collect rainwater, which is filtered, purified and stored in a large ground tank. And during the dry season, which lasts from November to May, solar distillation turns even polluted water into clean and distilled drinking water. As a result, this system can supply these villages with clean water year round.
Sibanor is just one case of how we have made water and sanitation accessible to the people of The Gambia. Throughout our program areas, we have supplied safe drinking water to more than 79 percent of the families as well as helped many of these families construct basic sanitary facilities to reduce the spread of communicable diseases.
Cerebral malaria, one of the most severe forms of the disease, accounts for 30 percent of deaths of children under five in The Gambia. Thanks to our bed net program and the medicine we have distributed, child deaths have decreased by 40 percent.
To ensure that children are properly nourished, we conduct mandatory health education programs for parents and require follow-up visits to regularly monitor their children’s growth. To date, more than 70 percent of the enrolled families have learned about nutrition from educational films and programs.
Taking care of children’s minds and welfare
It’s important that children’s learning begins in early childhood. To increase education enrollment of children under five, we added 25 new Early Childhood Development centers in the western region of the country and also trained facilitators and provided teaching and learning materials for these centers. These facilities not only offer learning activities and nutritious meals to young children, but they also give families valuable guidance on caring for their children at home.
We are also involved in making education available to school-age children, starting with the construction of 22 schools under the World Bank Classroom Project in collaboration with the Department of Education. This venture includes distributing scholastic materials as well as furnishing desks and other necessities to classrooms. And our 50 percent tuition assistance helps make education a possibility for many of The Gambia’s children.
It is important that military and security personnel know how to care for vulnerable women and children, both during times of conflict and peace. Since 2000, we have collaborated with Save the Children Sweden to train 750 The Gambia's military and security personnel on child rights and child protection to help keep this part of the population safe.
To provide families with new ways to generate income, we provide training in the management of animal husbandry, primary health care and crop management. And families are encouraged to become involved with credit unions, and village savings and credit associations to maintain small businesses and enhance their livelihoods.
While The Gambia has few natural resources, we are helping the people build a strong base of resources to support their survival. Help us give the people of this country a reason to look forward to tomorrow.
