July 2017 –
Project 1808 completed its first water well project for the Bilmaia Community in Kabala through a partnership with Madison Based Strides for Africa, an organization that focuses on providing clean water for health in various communities in Africa. The community of over 1000 people in faced water crisis and lack of clean portable water. Community members particularly school going children recount getting up at 4am to go in search of water. The hand pump well brings much relief to this parents, students, older and young community members.
Project 1808 is thankful to Strides for Africa’s founder Chris Jimieson for visiting the community in January 2017 and fundraising to help complete the first well, which was initially dug by Project students as part of their community intervention project.
In picture to the right are Strides for Africa founder, Chris Jimieson; Feeding Mouths and Feeding Minds (FMFM) founder Maria Groves, FMFM board member Amy Hegg, and Project 1808 2017 Intern Lauren Brady from Bennington College in Vermont. Lauren spent a very productive six weeks in Kabala working closely with District Coordinator Abdulai Jalloh to gather information for the well construction project, also researched and collected data on local food crops . Lauren was active with the after school tutoring programs.
