When we started Action Guinea Bissau one of the key things we wanted to do was to ensure the money that was donated could have an immediate, direct impact on the lives of people. We knew from conversations with Bacar and Ali that there were many people in the villages away from the capital in dire need of help with things that we in the western world take for granted.
For some people a toilet is just a hole in the ground surrounded by corrugated iron panels. For a charity of our size there’s very little we can do (yet!) about things like plumbing, waste pipes etc, these are much larger infrastructure issues that need a lot more money than we currently have available.
What we could do though was at least build a solid structure to help restore some basic human dignity. So, over the course of the last few weeks we have rebuilt six toilets for families in the village of Catio.
It’s a good example of where a little bit of money can go a long way, each rebuilt toilet cost around £200 and yet has a direct impact on a whole family.
Another area where we could have an immediate and direct impact was with the wells families use to extract their water.
As you can see from the photo some wells are little more than an uncovered hole in the ground. Multiple families use these and of course there’s a risk of animals falling in and poisoning the water, or even worse a child!
To help with all these issues we’ve built proper wells for people to use. Each of these wells serves 40-50 people so it’s a really big impact for an investment again of around £200.
The approaching rainy season brings new risks to the water supply, if a well is little more than a hole in a ground then the rains can wash rubbish and other detritus into it, potentially contaminating the supply. To that end we’ve authorized Bacar to go ahead and rebuild another 6 wells before the rains come.
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