Water and Sanitation
CORAfrica believes water is essential to human life. Because water is perennially a problem in rural communities, the provision of a borehole is a means to ease the health related issues children may encounter. While at school. access to water will not only enable the children to practice sanitary habits but also to cool their thirsts. With the acute shortage of water, school children would travel long miles each day in search of clean water from nearby urban locations.
In Ipong village for example, women and children often spend as many as six hours each day traveling to retrieve water for their families, a task that adversely affects their health and prevents them from pursuing their education and other relevant matters in life.
Recent Update
The Groton (NY) and Endicott (NY) Rotary Clubs , USA raised money for Water projects by selling Dewey Neild’s Waterfall Calendars. Dewey is a member of the Ithaca Sunrise Rotary Club. A clean water borehole was drilled the community of Ipong-Obudu on the grounds of Little Flower Nursery Primary School in September 2010. The water borehole supplies the school as well as the needs of school families and local residents.
In collaboration with the Rotary Clubs of Upstate, NY (Groton, Ithaca and Endicott), CORAfrica has undertaken additional water borehole projects bringing clean water to the community of Oremekpang which was selected through a survey initiated by The Cross River State Action Committee on AIDS (CRS SACA) revealing the need for clean water due to the state of vulnerable children. The borehole is located on the grounds of St. Paul's Nursery Primary School with an enrollment of 200 children and will serve the school as well as the surrounding community.
The clan community of Idum-Mbube, with 5000 residents is the site of a third water borehole. Geologically, Idum-Mbube was believed to be sitting on hard igneous rock, a situation which has made the digging of a borehole very problematic. Water had therefore been a scarce commodiity to the inhabitants. Recently, CORAFrica's team located a drilling rig from the Nile Drill Tech in far-away Abuja with a capacity of drilling up to 300 meters depth courtesy of GIDAS Divine Resources. The rig completed the drilling located on the grounds of St. Joseph Orphange School to ease the water problems for the orphans and the school which has an enrollment of 800 students.
The benefitting communities have arranged to provide mini water tanks and small engine power generators as a matching grant which will pump water to wider areas of the communities with the help of the submersible engines installed by CORAfrica. The tanks will provide water to the school children and the local community.
