When the team arrived Kaytouzon, Liberia everything went a little wild. A crowd of excited children, repeatedly chanting, ‘We want Tearfund’, gathered around the team that had come to find out how a project to deliver clean water had been going.
Tearfund staff are not used to rock star treatment, and none of them were taking the excitement as a personal compliment. Instead the enthusiasm serves to remind us all of the chasm that exists between rich and poor.
With jubilant crowd in tow, the team and townspeople made their way to the house of the local chief. It was there that the stories emerged: how the hand-dug well had transformed their lives and how the pump was the first of its kind for the town, which was established in the 1940s. The clan chief – Madam Annie Saydee – gave thanks to God for the pump, while the crowd spoke in unison: ’Tearfund gives us water! Tearfund gives us life! Diarrhoea is no more! Our children are free! And all of us are free!’
Life before the well and pump were constructed was certainly different. This remote community of 400 people was forced to source its drinking water from a creek that was a 15-minute walk from the village along a dark, overgrown forest path.
Yet there are other, less tangible benefits to having water in the village. Instead of creating a dependency on their own expertise, Tearfund staff worked hard to ensure that the project is both sustainable and able to deliver as wide a range of community benefits as possible. So the pump and well were the result of a collaboration between Tearfund workers and community development group made up of local people. The responsibility for the pump’s safety and maintenance is shared by the group – with both men and women represented – resulting in a clear sense of ownership and pride.
One of the two pump mechanics trained to repair the pump in case of any damage vowed that with his training, Kaytouzon will not return to the drinking of creek water. ’Creek water is now for only washing and bathing‘. He pointed out that with the realisation by the community of the importance of the pump; the people of the town are making monthly financial contribution per household to be used for the purchase of spare parts for the pump.
They might be small acts, but these displays of initiative and determination are setting a new course for Kaytouzon. As Tearfund and its supporters stand alongside communities such as this, it’s clear who the real stars of the show are.