 |
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
