School Pump Fixed, 800+students have clean water!

This is the schools Vergnet Pump, you step down on it to push the water out

This is one classroom for the 3rd grade. Approx. 80 students.....

This is grade 4-6 school rooms.

This is the first day of school so they are lined up for role call.

Ok, so because all of you wonderful people that read my blog and care about the people of Mali, I was able to fix our village school pump. Last July I sent out an email asking people to donate to my women's cotton spinning project. I only needed $500, and I ended up raising around $800! With this extra money I knew I needed to spend it on a project but wasn't quite sure which project to use this money for. So, because of another project that I am working on I had to go look at all of our town's pumps. We have 4 in all. 2/4 were broken. They headmaster of the school said their pump broke the year before and the children have about a 1 mile walk to the nearest clean water pump. I felt bad and said that we needed to work together to fix this.

Well, as most things go on in Mali, it took until 2 weeks ago to get this project rolling, as I was re-motivated to get their pump fixed because classes began Oct 1. Myself and the village water pump repairman had to travel to the closest city with was 2 hrs away to go buy the parts. It was $226 total to fix the pump! Not too bad by our standards, but for them a lot of money. Pump fixed! Clean drinking water for 800+students!

Now, a big argument in development work is gifting things vs. making people work a little bit for what they are getting. I am a firm believer in making the people work a bit, as I see first hand the effects of free handouts by the West. It creates a very unhealthy dependance. However I feel the students should not be punished for the adults inaction.

When I went to the school to check out the newly working pump, the headmaster told me there was a meeting with the chief of village the following friday as he wanted to formally thank me for fixing the pump and go over some other important business with myself and the water committee of the village (we have a water committee? and my neighbor is the president???? I though to myself). Anyway, my main point to bring home was that Yes, it made me very happy to be able to fix the pump, but I'm leaving next year and what will you do then when the pumps break again. So, that got them to think about starting to have everyone pay monthly to use the pumps, they understand the concept of monthly upkeeping, but always with the excuse of "we have no money." Now, this meeting was 20 men or so, and another part of my presentation was to map out our plan for fixing their other pump. I am to contribute 66%, the village 34% of cost per USAID rules for allocating funds. I told them if my women could raise $200 dollars to contribute towards building their Shea storage/workspace, then the men sure can raise $150 to fix their pump.

I believe I'm rambling now, but hope you get the point. I'm really proud and happy for this project and I couldn't have done it without the help of all my donors in the US! I hope to soon be able to fix their other pump. Clean drinking water is a major concern here, as well water is much more dirty, contains many diseases, and is a major cause for infant mortality here.