News 

Solving water access problems in the short and medium term

Eastern Region, Ghana -September 2013.  SVG works daily with people from communities affected by lack of access to adequate sources of water; these people are amongst the 1.1 billion worldwide who do not have access to safe drinking water.

Many of those affected live in rural areas, and are amongst the poorest and most vulnerable to be found anywhere in the world. According to the World Health Organisation, 300 million of these are in Sub-Saharan Africa, and approximately 80% of these live in rural areas.

SVG and Anidaso Health testing   local communities for schistosomiasis; it is the second most prevalent tropical disease in the world; malaria is the first
                                             

© svg 2013               

Without safe water near to dwellings, the health and livelihoods of families can be severely affected; children's education suffers as the daily tasks -fetching water amongst other things- take precedence over other concerns. Unhealthy water is also a source of disease -schistosomiasis, diarrhea, typhoid, cholera, guinea worm-. It can be a source of conflict amongst affected communities, and it can reflect deeper -at both the community and global level- environmental challenges.

In order to meet dispersed rural demand, water can be sourced

in various ways: digged from water wells and boreholes, 

collected from seasonal rainfall - rainwater harvesting-,

surface water -rivers, lakes etc.- and others.

A wide range of cost-effective, manageable, and innovative solutions have been created in producing clean, disease-free water. These solutions must be technologically sensitive to each individual community’s needs. For the technology to be effective, it must conform to environmental, ethical, cultural, social, and economic aspects of the communities.

SVG partnered with The Safe Water Trust to tackle these short and medium term challenges; these are the water filter systems shown here in use:

Pic 1: Family Filter

Pic 2: Community Filter 

SVG has so far distributed approximately 30 community water filters, each serving a group of 200, and 200 family filters.

FOr the year 2013/2014, SVG aims at continuing the distribution of water filters, and increasing the number distributed per year to communities in the Eastern Region, expanding the reach to other regions in the area.