Meeting with Wogen

A couple days ago, we met with Ato Mengistu, the director of the Wogen Association in Ethiopia. He showed us a few of the projects they are working on including the library, preschool, women cooperative and previous water projects. In addition, a few community members from the village of Chachikuna walked for several hours to talk with us about the plans for the water project. We all visited Wogen's previous water project together and the community members raised a major concern they had about the current project: the distance from their village up the hill from the proposed site at the bottom of the hill. They sited accessibility to water as their main problem instead of equality or cleanliness of the water. Since our proposed site is adjacent to their current water source, our project didn't meet their need for a closer water source. Upon more discussion about their needs and problems with their community water source, we learned about the presence of leeches in their current water that was killing cattle and making the people sick. We explained how our proposed water system would have three different access points: one for drinking water, one for washing clothes and bathing and one for cattle and animals. All three of these points will be purified using chemicals such as chlorine. While the community members wanted a closer site, they understood in our meeting that the proposed site was the only possible site for a water source and they were very happy about the new water source that would provide them with cleaner water. We all agreed that November is the ideal time to gather the money for the project and the members committed labor for the project. Wogen aims to connect with the local Water and Sanitation office to include this water project in their current repertoire of water projects. This would provide an organization that has the capacity and knowledge to consistently maintain the safety of our water source including the addition of chemicals. The community has already begun to collect money for the maintenance of the water source from the community and they there is also a petition signed by the community that recognized their need and desire for an improved water system. In addition, the community has donated the land for the water project in our ideal location.
Since we aim to begin our project in November, the narrow window in which there will be no rain and no harvest, we will need to have the total $12,000 USD raised by the beginning of November.