SAHA Global Team officially met with the Asutifi South Management to introduce themselves as WASH partners in the District.
Mr. Francis Gbandan explained that, SAHA GLOBAL is a Ghana-based non-profit that ensures access to safe and affordable drinking water for rural communities. We partner with women living in last-mile villages and train them to launch and run community water treatment centers. To date, we have trained over 1,200 women who provide safe drinking water access to more than 134,000 people living in 460 villages throughout the Northern, Savannah, Oti and North East Regions in Ghana. Saha’s ultimate goal is not to open water treatment centers – it is for people in our partner communities to drink clean water exclusively, because we know this is how to impact health. This requires significant behavior change for people in our partner communities. Therefore, Saha commits to a minimum 10-years consistent follow-up after a water business is open. We will not work in a new community unless we have the funding for this follow-up.
He emphasized that, Saha trains women from rural villages how to launch simple water treatment centers that provide safe water to their community at a price that all can afford. For the past twelve years, Saha Global has worked exclusively in the Northern Region of Ghana, where we have 434 water treatment centers that provide safe drinking water to 131,497 people.
As part of their processes in providing safe Clean Drinking Water, Saha works with local governments to identify villages that rely solely on contaminated surface water sources. Local leaders nominate two to five women to become Saha entrepreneurs. They provide each business with locally available materials to build a water treatment center in the village, including a 1,000- liter Polytank, a metal Polytank stand, and three blue 200-liter drums.
Moreover, SAHA organizes Women’s Training where Women learn to treat the water from contaminated sources to make it safe to drink and to run the water treatment center, including pricing, frequency of treatment, and social marketing. Community Education become very important at this stage, therefore, Saha visits every household in the village to educate families about clean water and distribute safe storage containers (SSCs) that prevent water re-contamination in the home.
Water Treatment is done by the trained women in the various villages. Women entrepreneurs fetch dirty water from the dugout, fill up the drums, and treat the water with aluminum sulfate that causes sediments to settle to the bottom of the drums, leaving the water clear. They transfer the clear water into the Polytank where they disinfect it with chlorine. They sell the treated water for a price that everyone in the village can afford. Villagers then store the treated water in SSCs.
However, during this time, Saha Women entrepreneurs receive on-going mentoring and training from our dedicated service delivery team. This team also visits families at home to talk to them about the water treatment center, about the connection between water and health and to try to figure out any barriers to clean water consumption that families may face. These visits allow us to collect valuable data on performance, water quality and clean water consumption and also allow us to support the entrepreneurs as they learn the ins and outs of running a water treatment center
The coordinating director expressed his sincere appreciation to the team for coming in to help accelerate the progress towards the provision of universal WASH Service in the Ahafo region. This will also go a long way in solving the water situations in the District as well. He mentioned that, the Assembly is doing its maximum best in dealing water the problem. He admitted that, the SAHA Global coming in will be of great help for the district and the people to get access to affordable quality drinking water. He welcomed the team once again to the District and assured them of the Assembly support and for their operations in the District.
