Bread and Water for Africa® has been awarded a $10,000 grant by the Neilom Engineering for Social Change Fund to build a water well in Sierra Leone.
The grant is being made available through the Neilom Foundation and the Center for Engineering Concepts Development in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, in partnership with the Center for Philanthropy and Non-Profit Leadership in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland College Park.
“Our name reflects our highest priority to bring clean water to families, clinics, schools and entire communities,” stated Bread and Water for Africa® Executive Director Bethelhem Tessema, who noted that Bread and Water for Africa®, through partnerships with grassroots organizations in Africa, has provided water wells for tens of thousands of people in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Zambia and Sierra Leone.
The $10,000 grant funding will go towards building a hand pump water well to serve the Hill Station Primary and Secondary Schools as well as the surrounding community in Freetown, Sierra Leone. We will commit matching funds of $5,092 to fully meet to the total project costs of $15,092.
In 2015, we established a goal of building three wells in Sierra Leone, a country still recovering from the Ebola outbreak of 2014, by June 2016. The first of the three wells, in the community of Waterloo, is soon to be completed.
Bread and Water for Africa® has established a goal of building a total of three wells in Sierra Leone, still recovering from the Ebola outbreak of 2014 which continued into 2015, for FY 2016. The first well, in the community of Waterloo, is soon to be completed.
The Neilom Grant money, combined with the matching funds contributed by Bread and Water for Africa®, will make it possible to complete the second well early in 2016.
We will administer the grant with its partner, Faith Healing Development Organization (FHDO), of Freetown , Sierra Leone, which have worked as partners for more than 10 years. Weather permitting, the construction of the new well could begin as soon as January and be completed by the end of March.
The need for such a well in Sierra Leone is great. The vast majority of the population does not have access to safe and clean water and nearly half of the population uses unprotected water as their primary source for drinking, bathing and washing.
We are extremely grateful to the Neilom Engineering for Social Change Fund for recognizing the need for a well in this community that will benefit thousands and literally save lives.
On behalf of these thousands, we say “Tenki” (“Thank You” in Krio, the national language of Sierra Leone).
