Light Foundation Ghana Improves Water Quality

Access to Water: The Light Foundation Ghana Improves Water Quality within 1,000 Community Households in Ghana

The Light Foundation, Ghana (TLF), a not-for profit Organization working in the country to provide access to quality and portable drinking water to improve the livelihoods of deprived communities in partnership with Original Volunteers Ghana; has initiated a project dubbed "Purify Water for Safety Pilot Project" to reach 1,000 community households in Ghana with improved water quality by use of TLF/OV filters.

The "Purify water for safety pilot project" which is expected to reach 1,000 households with clean and improved quality water will also witness the distribution of 1,000 TLF/OV Community Filters among various communities within six regions by the end of phase two.

The Foundation has already chalked some level of success under the first phase of the project which resulted into a vast intervention in expanding clean water access to an estimated 800 individuals who previously lacked access to safe drinking water.

The modus operandi in achieving results outlined by TLF Ghana and Original volunteers Ghana is through the use of a special device known as TLF/OV community filters.

The device, developed by the team, has a unique physical membrane filters specially designed to separate sand, dissolved matter and impurities from water without electricity.

It has been designed specifically towards water improvement in rural areas where access to affordable and portable drinking water has been a problem therefore the need for water purification has become a necessity for survival for inhabitants to be free from diseases.

Water crisis is said to be number one global risk based on impact to society (as a measure of devastation), and the 8 global risk based on likelihood (likelihood of occurring within 10 years) as announced by the World Economic Forum, January 2015.

It is said that more than 80 percent of people in Ghana have access to safe water, but only 13 percent of people have access to improved sanitation.

According to Water Aid, 80% of all diseases in Ghana are caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation which makes the situation very frightening

Research has also shown that dependency on unsafe water sources is higher in rural areas. Due to drinking contaminated water, diarrhea disease is the third most commonly reported illness at health centres across the country and 25 percent of all deaths in children under the age of five are attributed to diarrhea.

Diarrhea caused by inadequate drinking water, sanitation, and hand hygiene kills an estimated 842,000 people every year globally, or approximately 2,300 people per day.

It is even shocking to note that 82% of those who lack access to improved water live in rural areas, while just 18% live in urban areas.

According to Hawa Suleimana Issah, Programs Manager of The Light Foundation, Ghana, the phase two of the project will see the distribution of 1,000 TLF/OV filters as a results of findings during the baseline survey conducted in Kwahu East and South Constituencies located in the Eastern Region. The reports revealed an access to water sources without corresponding increase in purification and hygiene practices; dwellers wash by the stream, share water source with animals, and also use the same water for cooking and other domestic usage.

"A sad exposé which sent shivers down their spines compelling them to take an action hence the introduction of the TLF/OV filters to serve as a remedy to the situation" she said.

She disclosed to Journalists in an interview in Accra last week that the

TLF Ghana has already donated 20 pieces of TLF/OV Community Filters and 120 pieces of TLF/OV Household Filters in Obomusu no.1 & 2 and Atibie Zongo in the eastern region. The team also provided them with 500 empty bottles respectively to aid water storage.

The phase 2 of the project, according Hawa Suleimana Issah is expected to improve water quality within 1,000 households, an achievement which will help reduce diseases like diarrhea and other waterborne diseases due to inadequate water drinking behaviour in rural areas.

In a related development The Light Foundation, Ghana (TLF) has also supported fifty-six (56) districts across five regions of Ghana under its initiative dubbed the "Water for Life Programme".

The selected regions under which the 56 districts have benefited are; Northern, Greater Accra, Eastern, Ashanti and Central region respectively.

The water for life programme is an initiative of TLF Ghana equally seeking to help reach millions of people in Ghana with improved quality drinking water especially in communities where water is a problem; one of the important areas of TLF Ghana's intervention in improving the lives of people which is access to water.

Other areas of focus which The Light Foundation, Ghana (TLF) is exploring to turn around the lives of the disadvantaged in society includes; Health Care, Education, Sanitation, Infrastructure and Skills Development.

Under the Water for life Programme, the achievements of TLF Ghana has been highly tremendous which saw intervention within some communities located in the Northern Region of Ghana which are Kpalsogu, Choggu, Gbambaya, Katariga benefitting from 41 boreholes.

In addition, TLF has also provided 86 hand-dug wells in various rural communities in Ata Kwesi, Amanfrom, Plot So and Egya Ebusua districts situated within the Eastern Region of Ghana

The Water for life Programme is funded by Save the Mother Trust in United Kingdom, Hope for Humanity, UK, and Volunteers for change sisters (UK) and Napari Group of Companies (Ghana)

By Joseph Kobla Wemakor/rodaleen30@gmail.com