Water For Everyone – The Gambia

The “Water for Everyone” initiative uses GIS (Geographic Information System) mapping as a collaborative umbrella facilitating the division of work between all parties interested in SDG 6’s provision of clean water for all. In the case of Water Charity’s Water for Everyone Initiative, provision of clean water to all the 15 million people who live in The Gambia, Togo, and Liberia—for starters. The most recent initiative undertaken by our Gambia Water Charity team included providing COVID-19 combatting hand-washing stations and soap at every well Water Charity rehabilitates in The Gambia.

Water for Everyone is a campaign to provide water for everyone in a border-to-border strategy using Geographic Information System (GIS) map-based collaboration.

The Gambia is the smallest country in mainland Africa and one of the poorest in the world. Lack of infrastructure, particularly the lack of efficient water management systems, is largely responsible for the low productivity of smallholder farms and therefore for The Gambia’s widespread rural poverty.

When asked how he started the herculean task of penning the Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkein reportedly said, “I wisely started with a map.”

Check out our Geographic Information System (GIS) Storymap below.

From each of The Gambia’s five regions, we recruited and trained surveyors. For several months, our surveyors rode motorbikes to visit and diagnose every public well on the GPS-enabled smart tablets in 2,059 communities, water services for a total of 2,008,019 people

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Can you imagine not having water during the Coronavirus Pandemic?

With no formal system to provide rural water, let alone maintain the water systems, over 60 percent of The Gambia’s rural wells are broken. And, after taking our survey, we know what communities need intervention the most.

At every well we rehabilitate, we are installing hand-washing stations with soap to combat the transmission of the Coronavirus. Help Gambians protect themselves from the Cornoavirus by helping to provide water.

Because, as Kofi Annan said, “Access to safe water is a fundamental human need and therefore a basic human right.

Fixing Broken Wells In the Most Water Challenged Communities

Uneven distribution of fresh sources and constraints in water resources development and management make water access difficult for many segments of the Gambian population, especially those in the rural areas who often rely on unsafe water sources. In our GIS Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) mapping survey, we found more than 60 percent of The Gambia’s rural waterpoints were in disrepair. So far, we have completed 72 separate water rehabilitation projects, including 32 in the Fulabantang Ward, where our Sustainability and Development Plan & Pilot Project is based.

Please visit our Project Pages to see the work we are doing on the ground:

WATER ACCESS FOR WATER-CHALLENGED GAMBIANS

THE GAMBIA WASH CAPACITY AND GIS MAPPING

COVID-19 HAND-WASHING STATIONS IN THE GAMBIA

WASH FOR DEVELOPMENT VIA NONPROFIT PARTNERSHIPS

Check Out Our GIS Storymap:

There is a great need for water access in rural The Gambia, so please donate to our cause today.