West Seneca Club Providing Clean Water to Ghana

Posted 
on May 31, 2009
 

Timothy Chipp of the West Seneca Bee wrote this article about the great work the club is doing in Ghana.

 

The West Seneca Rotary Club is looking to make it three for three as it kicks off its fundraising campaign for 2008-09. For the third consecutive year, the funds the club is collecting will be sent overseas to help efforts to provide safe and clean drinking water to villages in Ghana, Africa.

 

Both in 2006-07 and 2007-08, the club raised $2000 through various sales, including its annual holiday fruit sale, which is part of this year's efforts as well. "We kicked off our fruit sale", said Larry Rose, Chair of the International Service Committee. "We sell oranges, apples, cookie dough. And it all helps to raise money for the club's activities."

 

But the beauty of the Rotary Club's efforts is that the money raised each year goes through several matching grants and multipliers, thanks to various corporations and Rotary International. Thus, every dollar raised becomes $14, meaning the West Seneca Rotary Club actually raised $56 000 in the last two years, not $4000.

 

 

The primary goal in fixing the water supply in Ghana is to eliminate the parasitic Guinea worm. The worm, which grows about 3 feet in length, imbeds itself in the host body for one year before it starts to emerge. It can take anywhere from two weeks to three months to exit the body - a painful experience.

 

The local Rotary Club members teamed with the Tamale Rotary Club in northern Ghana, which also partners with the Jimmy Carter Center, Ghana Health Services, International Aid, UNICEF, the UnitedMethodistChurch and the Ghana Worm Education Program. The CarterCenter campaign to eliminate the disease started in 1986 when cases were reported in 20 countries. And since work began in Ghana, the results have only been positive. Twenty years ago, there were 180,000 reported cases of Guinea worm infection in that country alone. Today, that number stands at 350. In fact, the Guinea worm has been eliminated from the world except for Nigeria, Sudan and Ghana. The plan is to eliminate the threat of the worm from Ghana by 2010.

 

To accomplish its goals the Rotary Club project, not only calls for the creation of new, fresh wells, but also the installation of water filtration devices and the building of household latrines, which will help keep the water clean for a long time, West Seneca Rotary Club president john Boronkay said.

 

"The project is not just drilling new wells," he said. "It's making sure the water is clean and that it has a safe delivery system. Also, the money has gone to training people how to maintain the system. People are still maintaining it now."

 

The project in Ghana brought together Rotary Club members from New York, North Carolina, West Virginia, Texas, Virginia, Georgia and Massachusetts.