Physical Health Guinea-Bissau Project #33309

Water, Health & Women's Empowerment- Guinea Bissau

by WellFound

Water, Health & Women's Empowerment- Guinea Bissau

Project Report | Jul 6, 2020
Guinea Bissau: A Look Back and a Look Ahead

By Steven Bratten | International Project Officer

Women harvest fresh veg from the market garden

Going into our 11th year working in Guinea Bissau, we are still managing to improve year upon year. Since April 2019 we have achieved a lot, bringing truly sustainable and meaningful change to more people than ever.

Of course, we are now focused on facing the challenges posed by the coronavirus. More of that later. But first we wanted to share some of our progress in the last year. Progress that you have made possible.

Our work 2019-2020

Water

In the past year, we have brought safe drinking water to over 11,209 people in Guinea Bissau. This is an outstanding achievement, especially considering the remote nature of the regions we work in. Additionally, we trained 10 young people to maintain the wells. We make sure that each village has several people with the knowledge and skills needed. Those people live in the villages, meaning that when a well needs attention there is always someone who knows how to fix it.

Market Gardens

Since April last year, we have trained 330 women on sustainable farming methods and supported villages to set up three new market gardens. These give people access to a balanced and healthy diet, and are a source of economic, social and emotional empowerment for women. Women sell excess yields at market, meaning that for the first time in many of their lives they are making their own money.

Equality

We held 69 workshops focusing on equality last year. As a result, over 550 women have reported and demonstrated more confidence in participating in village decision-making. That’s not all, at least 652 men have reported and showed more supportive attitudes and behaviour towards women. Women now have opportunities to take more active roles in their villages. They provide healthcare, income and vegetables and they participate in decision-making committees.

Financial independence

This is a key aspect to ensure independence. We can help build financial independence in two ways. Firstly, individual incomes can be increased by providing training for people on construction and mechanics, sustainable farming and how to find local economic opportunities. Secondly, whole villages can become financially independent by establishing community-wide micro-saving schemes.

Coronavirus and our plans for the coming year

That was a brief summary of a very busy year, but now of course we all face the challenges of Coronavirus. The virus is spreading in Guinea Bissau and is largely going unchecked. We are coming across instances of severe hardship and food shortages across the country. We are shifting our focus towards tackling this virus and its effect on some of the most underserved areas in Guinea Bissau whilst of course ensuring the safety of our staff and residents of the villages whom we serve.

We are focusing on building more hand washing stations, providing health and hygiene training, horticulture training and on raising awareness of coronavirus. We are working in partnership with the Guinea Bissau Government and other organisations, to increase our effectiveness. The situation is likely to develop rapidly over the coming months, so our planning must remain flexible. We will of course keep you up to date with major developments.

Kids helping their parents fetch the daily water

Women's group getting ready to start farming

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Mar 10, 2020
Rhianna's Visit: A Report

By Rhianna Spearing | Project Visitor

Travelling to remote villages in Bijagos Islands

My name is Rhianna, I'm a 22-year old student studying International Development at the University of Portsmouth. In December 2019, I had an incredible opportunity to see 10 of the villages WellFound supports across Guinea Bissau. This small Portuguese speaking country passes unnoticed in the UK despite being one of the poorest places on earth. A week before Christmas I travelled overland from Senegal to the Gambia in a shared taxi known locally as a sept place (seven-seater). It took a whole day ending in a ferry crossing over the Gambia river. In Banjul, we were met by Joao who works as the programme coordinator in Guinea Bissau. All the next day we travelled by road through Gambia, back through southern Senegal and on to Bissau the capital of Guinea Bissau.

Crossing the border from Senegal to Guinea Bissau, I could immediately see the difference. Soon the tarmac disappeared and at times the roads were non-existent, having been washed away during the rainy season. The condition of the roads makes life hard, it’s difficult to move supplies around the country and presents a challenge for NGOs to function efficiently. Even the sturdy WellFound 4x4 was struggling but made the whole round trip with only one burst tyre.

Visiting the villages helped by WellFound was a breath of fresh air. When visiting each village, we were shown the wells that WellFound had built as well as the water sources that the villagers previously used to get water. The old water sources were shocking, often resembling small dirty puddles. Two of the projects that we visited were located in the remote Bijagos islands, located at least two hours by boat from the mainland (when the weather is good). The remoteness of the island was striking. I had the impression that not many NGOs had dared to venture that far off the beaten track. To build the wells here requires lots of planning, as all equipment must be shipped by small boat in unpredictable waters.

We were also shown around the market gardens by the women who were in the village committees which help to organise the projects. It was clear that these women, who had worked incredibly hard to maintain the gardens, took great pride in showing us all the various vegetables that were growing. They spoke of how the market gardens had transformed their villages by providing nutrition as well as extra income as the excess vegetables were taken to the markets to be sold. For me as a critical student this was community development in action.

A successful market garden in a village

Joao giving me a tour of the WellFound office

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Jan 8, 2020
A New Year: Time for Reflection

By Steven Bratten | International Project Officer

With a new year and new decade upon us, many of us have been looking back at what we achieved in 2019, and what we wish to achieve in 2020. WellFound is no different; we have goals, we have targets and we also look back at what we have done in the past to inform on how we can move forward to meet our goals.

Numbers and raw data are a small part of the bigger picture and no project can rely solely on the numbers, but they do give us a good insight into the areas where we have excelled and the areas were more work is needed. Any project must collect data from the field to see if we are on track to meeting our goals, and in 2019 we are happy to announce that the numbers are looking very good indeed.

We collect lots of different figures and measurements form our projects, far too many to report here but here are just some of our successes since April 2019:

In the last nine months, WellFound has brought safe and clean drinking water to almost 6000 people; over 7000 people now have access to a private, well maintained and clean family toilet, and over 700 people, mainly women, have become economically active for the first time, brining money into their families and their communities on a regular basis. While economic empowerment is vital, social and gender equality is paramount. Since April last year, we have seen over 1300 women report and actively demonstrate more confidence to participate in decision making at the community level and over 1000 men reporting and demonstrating more supportive attitudes and behaviour towards women's role in decision making as a result of WellFound training.

All of this is a huge achievement. While it is only a small part of the picture, it is very real, very encouraging and gives us even more hope that small organisations like WellFound can tackle some of our world's most pervasive and long-standing barriers to development. By being small and partnering directly with the communities with whom we work, we are able to fight these issues from the bottom up, creating truly sustainable and last change.

All of the above could not have been done without our kind supporters and donors. We would like to thank everyone who joined us in 2019 and everyone who continues to be by our side in 2020. Whether you donate or not, even telling one person about WellFound-whether that be a friend, a colleague, or a family member-can make a world difference.

As individuals, issues such as scarcity of water, gender inequality and child mortality seem like impossible problems to overcome, but if we continue to work together and stay focused, these problems will diminish until they disappear.

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