This project is made possible through the partnership of Water Charity and the National Peace Corps Association. 
This is part of Phase 2 of our South Sudan Well Rehab Program. The program began with the Tore region, which became the center of a new wave of violence. These new projects are being done along the Yei River, of Yei State. We continue with multiple well rehabs in Yei County where many are displaced from the last two years of violence in the Unity and Jonglei States.
This well repair has been completed. Scroll down below to read about the #CONCLUSION.
Location
Lomulule, Yei River County, Yei State, South Sudan
Community Description
The Lomulule village is a small village comprised of 45 households, home to 305 multi-ethnic people. The families mainly consist of Kakwa’s. When you leave Yei Town and head west down the main road to Meridi, you’ll find Lomulule. It is a village surrounded by maize, cassava, sorghum, millet, and trees that drop ground nuts for harvesting. Even with the produce-agricultural roots, many of the youth in the community hunt to make up for the crops that wilt when the wet season ends.
Most of the community are youth, focused on improving every aspect of their village, despite the political and economic crises waging around them. Hard-working, many of the residents continue to add to their workload by owning small-scale shops to encourage trading in the area. While many residents are forward-thinking in economic growth, they are still struggling financially, living in small mud huts with handwoven grass roofs.
Problem Addressed
With only one borehole to provide for all 305 community members, the clean, deep well has broken and created a strenuous burden for the village for the past three months. Now, the residents are forced to find their water from the unreliable streams and contaminated shallow wells far outside the village.
Worn down by age and lack of help, Joice Moriba spends an hour walking, to and fro from the nearest well, to supply water for herself and her four children. A single mother, the Lomulule resident has only her daughter to help her. However, her daughter is the youngest of the four and requires the most care. Even then, as her daughter grows older, she will be forced to miss out on receiving an education in order to help her aging mother with time-heavy tasks, such as gathering water.
Project Description
Water is Basic, a locally run drilling company, will be in charge of repairing the borehole. The process will include removing the borehole head and dissecting every pipe and part to determine where the problem lies. The pipes that are rusted or broken will be replaced, and the WIB team will monitor the fix closely to better supply proactive problem-solving.
Project Impact
This project will impact at least 305 people, plus all the visitors to the area.
Volunteer Directing Project
Steve Roese
Monitoring and maintenance
This borehole has a committee that consists of ten members: a chairperson and vice-chairperson, a secretary and vice secretary, a treasurer and vice treasurer, a timekeeper, and three advisors. Together, the members have introduced regular fees to build savings for future well improvements.
Focused on longevity, the borehole will be cleaned every morning before it is opened to the rest of the village. Controlling the usage of the borehole, with availability being a maximum of 8 hours per day, is essential for the borehole to prosper in Lomulule.
Comments
With so many youths in the village, the choice between hydration and education is a choice that is regularly being made. Gaining an education will not only teach factual knowledge necessary to sustain modern and healthy amenities, such as a borehole, but the learning will also provide a chance to understand empathy, teaching the emotional skills necessary to collaborate and stay focused on managing the borehole, as a community.
Water Is Basic operates an internship program where local, promising secondary school graduates manage projects in South Sudan for one year. Two recent graduates from Nehemiah Gateway University, in Albania, oversaw interns and the projects the interns were directing. In exchange for their work, the interns are given access to distance learning courses and are then assisted in applying for, and attending, their university of choice.
While not an official Let Girls Learn project, it is in keeping with the goals and objectives of that program, and, as such, falls under Water Charity’s own Let Girls Learn + heading.
This project has been paid for by an anonymous donor. If you wish to see more great projects like this one, please contribute to our South Sudan Well Rehab Program by clicking on the Donate button below.
Conclusion of Lomulule Well Rehab – South Sudan
Close to the edge of Yei Town, many houses within Lomulule are small and held together with mud, baked in the sun. 
The grass-thatched roofs don’t always work during the rainy season but provide enough shade during the dry months. Nearly three hundred people in the town have suffered for over five months due to the stale and standing pond down the road. Between hundreds of mosquitos nesting in the shallow waters and the wild animals that lurk along the road to the pond, the community’s health has fared horribly since the borehole broke.
By closing the six-mile gap between Lomulule and the nearest available clean water, Water is Basic and Water Charity has helped decrease the possibilities of anyone in the community becoming sick from waterborne diseases, or being hunted by wild animals along the dangerous road to the nearest pond.
We must give thanks to the courageous well repair team that completed this work despite there being armed conflict and profound civil unrest while this project was happening. We were advised that they not do this work until it became safe to do so, but the workers are extremely dedicated and would hear nothing of it. The dire situation in this area of South Sudan only inspired them to want to do this work even more. Rather heroic of them really.
Project Description
The cylinder, chain, and multiple GI pipes and rods were replaced by the repair team. In just a couple of hours, the repair was completed and the WIB crew talked with the community about sanitation rules and water regulations. The crew worked with the local well-usage committee to translate this information to the rest of the community and helped empower the women who ran the committee.
The community is honored that Water Charity and WIB have helped repair their borehole. With clean water, the community is able to retain much more of their money within the local economy, rather than spending their small funds on medical bills, and/or fuel for boiling water.
Aputo is a housewife married to a native Lomulule farmer. The couple is the lucky parent of four children, all attending primary school within the community. When the borehole was broken, Aputo was one of the many women who were forced to bring her youngest children with her to carry water to and from the jungle. Now, all of her children can attend school throughout the entire day as it takes much less time for her to reach the local water source.
With all the challenges people are facing in Yei (and all over South Sudan), water access really should not be one of their issues. While we are not in a position to solve all of the problems they face, we can make sure that they don’t have to travel six miles to gather water that makes them sick and threatens the lives of their young children. The success of this project demonstrates the value of the model. Fixing wells is a LOT more efficient than drilling new ones.
Please support this work, as it is really important.
