By Barbara and Melissa | Founder/Director (Barbara) and Volunteer (Melissa)
The Nyitawuta well project has been live on GlobalGiving's website for almost three months to the day. We had a very successful Accelerator experience, where we were able to meet the minimum of $5,000 from 40 unique donors within the first two and a half weeks. GlobalGiving's bonus matching day garnered us $194 in matching funds for raising $2,020 in that one day. Thank you for your support--you've helped us become a permanent partner organization on GlobalGiving.
Project Planning
As of today, December 1, 2019, our project has raised $6,231 for the Nyitawuta well. We have been exploring how to maximize the use of these funds and ensure we can bring this well to the community as quickly and efficiently as possible. We were originally working with an engineer who quoted us a price tag of $25,000 to complete the well, from start to finish. Recently, however, we have switched to a new company that will be able to build a comparable well for 60% less than the original quote.
There are a couple of reasons for why the same project can be completed for $15,000 less than originally planned. The new engineer owns his own equipment for conducting the work, so rather than paying tremendous sums to rent large construction machines that can be brought to the community, he just has to transport his own machines and pay for the labor. The previous quote also called for a larger well than what the new engineer has assessed is necessary to meet the needs of the community.
Weather Conditions
Nyitawuta is located in eastern Ghana, a region that is now well into its minor growing season, or mini-rainy season. Even though these rains aren't as substantial as during the main wet season, it still affects the roads to Nyitawuta. When Barbara traveled out to the community on a recent trip, the road was so flooded that she was forced to park and stay in the next community over. She rode a motorbike to get into Nyitawuta for her visit.
For the time being, the roads are impassable, to the extent that heavy machinery cannot be transported in at this time of year. Even if it was possible to get to the community on a day of good weather, the soil would be so saturated with water that the machinery would get stuck trying to do any work. HOCAP will therefore wait until the rains stop and the soil is easier to work with before beginning work on the well. Of course, community farmers don't need the well right now, anyway, since the rain coming down in this season is sufficient to keep any growing crops irrigated throughout the season.
We hope to reach the $10,000 goal by the end of the year so that we can begin planning the specifics on constructing the well. A big piece of that fundraising will occur on #GivingTuesday two days from now. Your support has been so valuable to us already--if you are able to support us on this important day by donating or sharing this report with friends, we would be very grateful. (I'll include a link to the project site)
We'll provide another update once the project is fully funded and we are able to start planning the next steps for the project.
Links:
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