Compassion International Child Development Centers TG203, TG208, & TG671.

THE CONCERN: Inadequate and unsafe drinking water at 3 Child Development Centers in Togo. Need: $66,546

 
$66,546: Funded December 24, 2015. Completed Fall 2016

Your gift helped transform the well-being and health of 915 Compassion-assisted children, their families, and their caregivers.  The funds you donated, combined with the gifts of other caring friends, enabled the three church-based Compassion centers these children attend, located northwest of the capital city of Lomé, to drill deep borehole wells. More importantly, you provided the children something they have never had before — access to abundant, safe water and the promise it provides of a bright and healthy future!

There are a few wells in the communities targeted by this project, but they are far from the Compassion centers, and the lines to collect water are unbearably long. Additionally, for Saturday activities hosted at the center, volunteers prepare by spending all day Friday collecting and hauling water. But even then there is not enough water to meet Saturday’s needs: The children cannot wash their hands before meals or after visiting the toilet, and there is not enough to drink to stay hydrated during the games. Volunteers cooking the children’s meals often run short of water, which also makes properly cleaning the center facilities impossible. Worse still, the water is often unsafe, leading to illness among the children. Recently, the three centers reported 54 cases of  waterborne illness, including life-threatening cholera. Diseases also affect children’s school attendance.

The staff members have to spend a significant portion of their budget to treat these preventable illnesses — funds that could be better spent on expanded learning and development opportunities for the children.

The children’s home situations are another detriment to their health. In most cases their families’ source of water is contaminated and located a significant distance away. The time-consuming, physically taxing job of collecting water often falls to the children, and their caregivers have little understanding of the principles of good hygiene, sanitation and the prevention of waterborne diseases.

With your help and the help of others, this dire situation can be turned around — not only for the children currently served by these three Compassion centers, but for countless more to be served in the future. Expected to take 16 months, this life- changing initiative will accomplish the following at each center:

• a borehole well site selected
• task force committee appointed and a drilling expert hired
• bids from drilling companies solicited and the most reputable and competitive selected

• a deep borehole well drilled and an electric pump installed
• a concrete tower constructed and a high- capacity water storage tank installed
• water supply lines connected
• a hand-washing station constructed
• 915 Compassion-assisted children and 874 caregivers trained in proper

hygiene and sanitation practices as well as waterborne disease awareness and prevention

• water made available to families in the community for a reasonable price (using the funds collected to maintain the well)

TOTAL PROJECT AMOUNT:  $66,546

Thank you for your prayerful consideration of this request. Your contribution will not only help provide the gift of good health and a healthy future for Togolese children in need but will also serve as a tangible and powerful expression of God’s love for them.