Miracles in Africa

BO, Sierra Leone

1 March 2010

In the bush an hour east of Bo, in central Sierra Leone, a procession of about 50 villagers marched toward the river, singing praises to God and thanking Him for answering their prayers. It was an unexpected and exceptionally warm welcome to a small contingency from Latter-day Saint Charities who had come to teach villagers about hygiene in preparation for a water well being constructed in their village.

While Bo is the second largest community in Sierra Leone, with more than 130,000 people, most of its inhabitants live in rural villages that don’t even appear on a map. Here, people have no paved roads, electricity, or water systems. In the small village of Lowama, as in many other villages, women and children make a lengthy daily trek to haul drinking water from a neighboring village.

To ensure ownership of a well by the community, each project begins with the formation of a water committee and training in hygiene for families months in advance of the well digging. If a problem arises, the community will have been empowered to find a solution without reverting to getting water the way they had for generations—out of streams with questionable purity.

“The Church has always been more concerned with building people than water systems,” said Matthew Heaps, clean water initiative manager for Humanitarian Services. “Our training has increased our impact in reaching that goal. This training allows families to discover the importance of hygiene, how to keep their hands clean, and how to properly care for water once it has been obtained from the well. Our goal in each community is for them to feel complete ownership so they will maintain the well and take responsibility for their health.”

The key to success in such projects is the people themselves. For the Bo area, LDS Charities contracted a project manager, hygiene supervisor, 10 site monitors, and 10 hygiene instructors for this 100-well project. This train-the-trainer concept extends the training to 100 villages and some 50,000 people. Most of these small communities—averaging about 900 people each—consist of Muslims and Christians who work together with Latter-day Saint Charities for a common good, regardless of their different beliefs.

The value of clean water cannot be completely appreciated until one realizes that Sierra Leone has the world’s second-highest infant mortality rate. Waterborne typhoid fever is one of the leading causes. Last year, LDS Charities provided clean water in Sierra Leone and 22 other countries for nearly one million people.

“If I could speak for the people of Sierra Leone,” said Mustapha Turay, project manager for the new wells, “I would say a big thank you to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for blessing our lives, for coming to our aid at a most needed time. Thank you for saving lives.”