March 4, 2025

For most people in Canada, making a cup of coffee is simple: turn on the tap, fill up the coffee pot with water, put in the coffee, and indulge! One of the main reasons preparing a cup of coffee is simple is because of easy access to water.

Around ten years ago, water became easily accessible for villagers in Soya, Sierra Leone. OXFAM, a non-governmental organization, had paid local villagers to dig a 20-metre deep well in the middle of the village which provided the community with access to clean water via a hand pump. Prior to that, people had to walk to a stream over a kilometre away to fetch water, and during the dry season when the stream dried up, they had to dig holes in the forest and wait for water to pool.

Unfortunately, due to erosion in the well and damage to the pump, the well stopped producing water. Women had to return to the old methods of getting water, but the water was not clean, and community members began to struggle with waterborne diseases, including dysentery, which led to the death of a child. But the community could not afford to build a new well or to repair the old one.

Then Christian Extension Services (CES), World Renew’s local partner, began working to improve livelihoods in Soya, focusing first on leadership development. The leaders readily agreed that water was the biggest concern in their community. Fatmata Mansaray, whose grandchild had lost his life to dysentery, was selected to be the Well Repair Chairperson. World Renew received word of the project and contacted donors who generously responded with funds to help repair the well. With the community providing volunteer labour and local materials, the villagers of Soya soon had a functioning well.

Because the original well had been damaged in part by youngsters playing with the pump, the community also worked on creating policies for using the newly refurbished well. Fatmata worked with other women in the community to set morning and evening hours for the well to be available for water pumping for five hours a day and locked the remainder of the day. In addition, Soya is now collecting a “water tax” from each family to save for future repairs. “Water is life. Now that we again have safe drinking water we can have good health in our village,” says Madam Fatmata.

Praise God that children in Soya now have access to safe water. Through your gifts you can help World Renew to support more families in communities where accessing water is a challenge.