Seeds of Hope is committed to an integrated program of water, sanitation, and hygiene (iWASH). SoHIP does not just come into a community, drill a well and then leave.
Seeds of Hope equips communities with the tools necessary for lasting change by bringing knowledge in multiple areas of development, effectively reversing the downward cycle of poverty.
SoHIP integrates appropriate development components within each community, working with government officials, churches, NGOs, schools and other community leadership structures to bring community ownership of the process of transformational community development.
WATER WELL DRILLING
We are working to drill wells in impoverished communities. Each well can bring clean water to as many as 1,000 people. This has an immediate effect on the prevalence of water-born diseases in a community. SHIP began our work in Zambia with two cable tool drill rigs, both built by Orley Campbell of Canada. We have found the cable tool rig is an appropriate next step technology for Zambia because it is easily maintained and repaired, enabling the ministry to become self-sustaining. Seeds of Hope targeted drilling community development wells where we combine the drinking water well with participatory hygiene training and training a group of pump caretakers who can maintain and repair the new well. These things combined multiply the benefits throughout the community.
HAND PUMP REPAIR
Millions of rural peoples rely on hand pumps for their family’s drinking water. In many places wells have been drilled without local people having the knowledge to repair them. Crews can be trained to repair broken wells that have been out of service for years. Our program encourages hands on training on several types of hand-pumps to ensure the pump repair technicians are adequately trained. With a few tools and a little training, Africans can be equipped to help their own communities. Several teams have been trained in repairing broken hand-pumps. These students then become teachers throughout their communities. We have established a hand pump parts store and a place for community members who have been trained to come to borrow the tools in order that they can repair the broken hand-pumps.
During the pump repair we are proactively trying to solve some of the issues by training the community to be able to repair their own pumps. To facilitate this, we have set our program up to mentor the pump repairman for the 1st 10 boreholes that they repair. This means that they are a part anyone week training where they repair 2-3 pumps and then we go with them as they repair up to 10 pumps. At this time we required to letters of reference and a seeds of hope validation certificate and then we will loan tools to them to repair their pump from then on. We have opened a pump repair parts retail shop where we are selling the parts because they are not available to be purchased in small quantities. We are hoping this solves all the different issues along the way. When boreholes that are not working we can look at to see what we could do to get them working. In addition to repairing the hand pump we can also do some further investigation. If the borehole is giving dirty water we could try to do compressing of the borehole to try to clean the water up. This is done by putting compressed air into the borehole over a several hour or several day. Together with pumping it with a submersible pump we have sometimes seen this process clean up the borehole.
We also do a water quality testing for boreholes to see what bacteriological contamination’s might be present. We could do this if needed as well. If the borehole continues to not give clean or clear water there is also the option of providing a sand filter or sand filters to the surrounding communities.
BIO SAND FILTERS
These filters purify drinking water right in a family’s home, removing up to 97% of the pathogens in water. SoHIP is manufacturing and installing BioSand Filters from our Resource Center in Zambia. Through partnerships with other organizations we are targeting areas in deep need for the benefits that these filters bring. We have partnered with CAWST, Thirst Relief International, and Blood:Water Mission on this project. For just $80 a family can have the ability to clean their drinking water year after year. This is an amazing technology to be able to bring to impoverished communities.
BOREHOLE MANAGEMENT
Seeds of Hope requires all boreholes drilled by SoHIP to be accompanied with a 2 day hygiene training, a one day borehole management training, and to train 2 pump repair people for each borehole. SoHIP is constantly looking to faciliate community ownership and train interested community members in the skills necessary for ongoing pump maintenance. It’s a longer process but Seeds of Hope has seen encouraging results! The hygiene training multiplies the effectiveness of the clean water because one could easily collect clean water from the borehole but then contaminate it on the way home by the storage container or how and where it is stored for use. The borehole management training deals with the issue of raising funds to repair the borehole in a transparent way so that it can be done effectively over the long term. SoHIP trains a couple people per borehole on the pump repair because our objective is to have pumps completely ran and maintained by the community.
RAINWATER HARVESTING
Seeds of Hope is promoting rainwater harvesting as a part of our center of expertise. It is a very critical in several countries in Africa, especially those with 2 or more rainy seasons. It is a great addition to agriculture ministries and can insure better yields and high crop quality which all means better nutrition.
