25/26
Transcript

Hi. This is Kristen with LDS Charities, and today I'm here with Elder and Sister Reynolds, who are technical specialists for our water initiative. So the first question I have for you guys--thank you again for being here with us--what is a water technical specialist, and what backgrounds do they usually have? Water specialists are couples that are called to give clean water to people throughout the world. We do spring capture, rain capture, and boreholes. Our specialty is the boreholes in western Africa. The people who are involved are generally engineers, contractors, or construction people, some geologists, but with some kind of a water background. And what countries are you assigned to? We're assigned to Nigeria, to Ghana, and to Ivory Coast. And you guys served a mission in Ghana beforehand, right? We did. It always helps to have an understanding and background and experience in the customs and traditions. And one of the things I talked with Del about was the importance of making sure the community is involved and making sure that they're ready for this new step in their lives, right? Because once you get the clean water there, there's a whole bunch of things that need to happen in order to keep that water clean. So you do some hygiene training. And what kind of training and things do you teach them with that? We do a hygiene training program in Nigeria that LDS Charities came up with. And it's done in a way where the people participate. They're given a paper that shows a picture, and they talk about what's on the picture. And as a group they decide if this is good, if this is bad. And then it helps them to understand how to take care of the water, how important it is to have clean drinking water, how to wash their hands, how to prevent the diseases that come from dirty water such as cholera and typhoid and dysentery. And so there are many things to do with the hygiene before we ever worry about putting in a borehole. So what is the hard part of a whole water project? What's the hardest part for you? Well, the easiest part is sinking the borehole. The most difficult part is to help them understand and overcome the customs and their traditions. So we help them to organize a water committee so that we have somebody responsible for taking care of the system after it's installed. But we also require them to have half women on the water committee, which is not usual for Africa. And they look at you and question why I'm requiring women on the committee, until I ask them who carries the water. Then they understand. That gives us people who have a vested interest in making sure that the water well is going to be maintained. The other part of that is that they're not used to paying for water, although every day they are buying sachets. So we help them to understand that they're spending more money for a little sachet, which is two cups of water, than what it will cost them to have 30 liters of water on a daily basis once they have the borehole. I think that's so interesting. And I love that you're getting the whole community involved and making sure everyone's voice is heard when it comes to how to maintain this and make sure that everyone knows what it takes to keep the water clean. So you brought some hygiene training here, which I love. Sister Reynolds, why don't you talk to us a little bit about what this is and what kind of training that you're doing with this little device. This is called a tippy tap, and it's got clean water inside that they have gotten from their new borehole. And when it comes time that they want to wash their hands, they just need to pull down on the string. They can wet their hands. Here they've got covered soap so that they can put the soap on their hands. After they've done the soap, they can pull the string again and rinse their hands off and then dry them in the air so that they keep their hands clean. So when they're preparing the food, they've been able to wash in clean water and keep their food clean also. And here you have some of the picture demonstrations that you use, correct? To kind of help them understand what's sanitary and what is not. So you guys have been doing this for years now, and of all your experiences, is there a story or a moment that stands out to you? I remember one in one of the first communities that we visited. We had some women who were sitting under a nice, shady tree. I walked over to talk to them, and I just said, "You've got a beautiful little new baby here." And of course, they didn't speak any English. And I just smiled at them and talked to them. And they were very shy. Then about a year later, after the borehole had been in, we came back to the same community to look at the well and see how it was working. And when I got out of the car, the women recognized me. And all of them as a group came right toward me, and they were just all talking at the same time. And they were going like this. They wanted me to know they knew how to wash hands. They were pointing at the well. They were empowered. They just knew that they were different because they had clean water. And their little baby that I had seen a year before was on the mother's back. And I just looked at that baby and thought, "You have got a better life ahead of you because of clean water." Well, thank you so much for everything you guys do. We appreciate it. And it's good to know that we have wonderful couples like you out there helping with our initiatives. Thank you so much. Thank you.

LDS Charities behind the Scenes—Water Technical Specialists

Description
Elder and Sister Reynolds explain what goes into a water project and how they train on proper water hygiene.
Tags

Related Collections