Saré Sara Well Improvement Project – Senegal

Location
Saré Sara, Bagadaji, Dabo, Kolda, Senegal

Community Description
Saré Sara is a small Pular village along the road in the southern Senegalese region of Kolda, about twenty kilometers outside of Kolda, the regional capital. Spread across its sixty-one compounds is a population of approximately 450 people. Of that, 22% are adult men, 21% are adult women, and the remainder are children.

The village is home to four boutiques of various sizes and a weekly market. The majority of villagers earn their living through sustenance farming. Chief agricultural outputs are peanuts, corn, and cotton. There are smaller production levels of other crops, mostly millet and beans.

Most water in the village is obtained from wells located in a little over a third of the family compounds.

Within the village, diarrheal diseases are a major problem, particularly among vulnerable populations and during the rainy months of the year. As many of these are the result of waterborne contamination, wellhead improvement can go a long way towards amelioration of these health conditions.

In Saré Sara, the wells are mostly simple, hand-dug, unlined pits. As the water table during the driest part of the year is almost never deeper than twenty meters, this is the simplest method of obtaining water. However, such shallow wells are prone to collapse and contamination by surface runoff.

There are two sub-types of these wells present in the village, those with a rudimentary wellhead consisting of some sort of cement foundation, and those with only logs or a tire lining the opening of the well. The latter variety is particularly in need of improvement, because in addition to increased contamination risk, there is also the possibility of children and animals falling into the well.

Project Description
This project is to improve existing wells for as many people as possible in the village.

Priority will be given to those most in need of improvement. For those with no existing foundation, a raised cement platform will be constructed for each, with a small metal access door and a short wall around the well opening.

For those wells which are leaking or in imminent danger of collapse, the wells will be capped and sealed so that they are no longer a threat to the safety of the community.

Remaining funds will be used to repair wells with existing cement works, and cap each with a custom fit door.

Project funds will be used to purchase materials, including cement, sand, gravel, rocks, metal doors, and hinges. The work will be done by local craftsmen.

It is anticipated that 12 wells of the simple type will be improved, along with the capping of the 2 unsafe wells that must be closed. All remaining funds will be used to improve the 9 existing wells with that already have foundations.

Project Impact
The project will directly benefit the 450 residents of the community through clean drinking water and decreased health risk.

Peace Corps Volunteer Directing Project
Martin Davis

Comments
This critical project prioritizes the need and attacks the problem directly, making the most effective use of the resources that are available to enable the most people to have access to safe water.

With additional funds, and the organizational and technical experience gained, the project can be replicated in other local villages that currently have similar problems.

Dollar Amount of Project
$500.00

Donations Collected to Date
$500.00

Dollar Amount Needed
$0.00 – This project has now been fully funded through the generosity of The Soneva SLOW LIFE Trust as a part of their Clean Water Projects initiative, with the help of friends and family of PCV Martin Davis.

We encourage others to continue to donate using the Donate button below, and we will notify Martin of your donation. Additional funds will be used to fund the next project by the PCV and/or other projects in the country of service.




This project has been finished. To read about the conclusion of the project, CLICK HERE.