PROVIDING SUSTAINABLE SOLAR ENERGY WATER WELLS IN THE GAMBIA

Water is a staff of life and a prerequisite for a healthy life

Water is like the blood every human being needs in the body because without it, life can’t go on, yet Africa faces the biggest challenge of water crisis yearly, which often leads to poor sanitation, diseases, and other health hazards.

Like a lazy-moving snail, Africa’s development has been very slow, affecting its infrastructure, including buildings, sanitation, schools, health, and water. Poverty is so severe that many villages have no access to electricity or water.

The water crisis in developing Africa and other continents called for ‘World Water Day’ -Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, by the United Nations on March 22, 1992, on the theme ‘Water For Life.’

In the year 2013, on holiday in the Gambia, one of the tourist attraction countries embedded into Senegal, in West Africa, Loes Koenen, a Dutch woman working in the health sector, had a change of mind after visiting the rural parts of the country.

WellHalo’s water project in The Gambia

“I saw with my own eyes how poor the Gambian people are. I was devastated by the misery and especially the poverty, and I needed a few days to recover. 

That’s why I decided to go back to the Gambia in February 2014, to do something about it. I couldn’t live with myself, living in Holland with all the luxury, while people there are suffering,” says Loes Koen.

Like the Polish writer, Ryszard Kapuscinski, sharing his experience of his visit to Africa, including Ghana, Loes said, in the Gambia, it was like I was living in a documentary of National Geographic, but with the bitter reality. 

We were in the land of nowhere, dry land, dry bushes, with dirt roads, and the only green I saw were Baobab trees, the only trees that bear fruit.

Without wasting any time, the ‘WellHalo Foundation’ embarked on the construction of sustainable water wells powered by solar energy in the villages. Each project is relatively expensive, about 7500 Euros, but it will last a very long time.

WellHalo Foundation finds those projects very necessary because of the lack of clean water generates infectious diseases such as malaria since mosquitoes lay their eggs in the water.

 

During my first visit, I was faced with these tough questions: how do these people cope? And how do they survive? The questions were finally answered when we began the projects.

The need to help Africa is very necessary. We can’t pretend we don’t know what is going on. Giving Africa clean water is like saving the entire continent, and putting a street child in the classroom is like saving an entire nation. Know more about predicaments in Africa. 

You are invited to join the ‘WellHalo Foundation’ and together let’s help Africa.

Official website of ‘WellHalo Foundation’: http://www.wellhalo.com

THE THREAT OF ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS IN AFRICA

Access to clean drinking water remains a problem in developing Africa.

Environmental problems are not only caused by improper use of nature’s resources but also by unreasonable exploitation, overpopulation of states, low incomes of the population, and unemployment, as the natural environment experiences degradation.

The state of the natural environment of African countries is reflected in the high rates of population reproduction, which are associated with the expansion of acreage and pastures, the growing number of cities, and the excessive and irrational use of natural resources.

The most acute environmental problems of Africa today are reduced soil fertility, accelerated erosion, deforestation, growing water scarcity, deteriorating surface water and air quality, cutting down evergreen forests, and disappearing plant and animal species.

Other causes of environmental problems are the poverty of states and the neglect of environmental consequences. Dirty industries and pollution affect African countries. Environmental degradation also affects food, farming, and livestock.

A typical example of an environmental problem in Africa is that of the Sahel, a vast natural area 400 km wide south of the Sahara from the Atlantic to Ethiopia. The Sahel is a transitional semi-desert zone from deserts to savannas.

The northern boundary of the Sahel is the isoline of the annual precipitation amount of 100–200 mm, and the southern boundary is 600 mm. The average temperature here is + 27 ... + 29 ° С. The humid summer period does not last long, and 80–90% of the precipitation evaporates.

The dry season lasts 8-10 months. The main type of economic activity over the centuries has been nomadic and semi-nomadic cattle breeding. During the wet season, cattle graze in the north of the Sahel, and in the dry season, it is distilled to the south.

This use of land led to a violation of the ecological balance in the twentieth century, which resulted in an increase in the area and the movement of deserts to the south, up to 10 km per year, desertification, and the transformation of arid lands into desert.

The main consequence of this process is an increase in the number of droughts. Some of them went down in history as the 'Sahel tragedy, from 1968 to 1974, and from 1984 to 1985. Africa has 17% of the world's forests. 

Spontaneous deforestation for firewood, valuable trees leads to a reduction of forests. Africa has lost 90% of its evergreen coastal rainforests. In Madagascar, for example, evergreen forests are preserved only in small areas in the east of the island.

A crucial problem in Africa is the shortage of freshwater. To solve it, scientists have proposed various watering projects, for example, in the Sahara. There are projects of diversion of the Congo River to the Sahara and the creation on the site of the ancient lakes of Chad, the Sahara, and Chad.

The presence of rapids on African rivers creates conditions for the irrigation of drylands through the construction of large reservoirs. Reservoirs Kariba on the Zambezi River, Nasser on the Nile River, are examples of the rational use of African surface water.

Poor waste disposal and pollution in Africa an opportunities to invite strange diseases from the developed world to Africa.

National Parks of African countries are taking steps to save wildlife. For these purposes, specially protected areas are created. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the first national parks appeared in Africa: Albert, Virunga, Serengeti, Rwenzori, etc.

After liberation from colonial oppression, 25 new national parks were created at once, and by the beginning of the XXI century, protected areas accounted for more than 7% of its territory. The first place in the number of national parks is Kenya (15% of the area).

The largest in the area is Tsavo National Park, more than 2 million hectares, where lions, rhinos, giraffes, Kafa buffaloes, and 450 bird species are protected. The park is best known for herding elephants. In South Africa, savannahs and South African fauna are protected.

Timber exports within parentheses in Africa generate large income for many African countries, yet Africa faces threatening challenges, such as deforestation.

Westerners come to the continent for quality wood, so the area of tropical forests has significantly decreased. African leaders must find solutions to save our continent because the continuous cutting down of trees will affect the population and the environment.

EUROPEAN UNION GRANTS LIBERIA LOAN FOR EMERGENCY AID

The European Union


The European Union (EU) has decided to release a loan of 10 million euros, as an additional aid to Liberia to enable some 500,000 people in the country to have access to health care and drinking water, according to the press statement issued in Brussels by the European Union last year.

The loan, among others, will be used to bridge the funding gap in the transitional period between humanitarian aid funding and development funding. 

The EU noted that the aid to Liberia has been so far "successful and helped to establish a link between emergency aid, rehabilitation, and development".

Out of the loan, 7 million euros will be used to fund the primary health care projects and to improve maternal and infant health. In addition, the loan will be used to finance programs for access to drinking water and sanitation networks and for the improvement of hygiene.

Part of the funds of about 2.95 million euros will be used to ensure a harmonious transition to bridge the gap until the end of the process. 

Liberia is one of the African countries that was totally crippled by war during the era of Charles Taylor, who is now facing criminal charges at The Hague.