Healthcare and Clean Water

Clean Water - At the Heart of Healthy Communities

One of the worst daily hardships faced by many African communities is the extreme shortage of water. Women and children often walk more than a kilometer every day to fetch water, returning home stooped under the backbreaking burden of their full water buckets, sometimes repeating this trip several times per day. When children are required to spend a large part of their day gathering water, the task affects all aspects of their youth, especially time spent on education and physical development.

Clean Water Projects

Water Tanks and Rainwater Harvesting

Rainwater harvesting has long been recognized as a viable and cost-effective means of accessing water for rural communities. The So Foundation plan to provide guttering and rainwater tanks, taps, water pumps and windmills, hoping to raise awareness of the benefits of water collection in communities and individual households. The tanks will also provide water for school children, who do not have to miss school because they have to fetch water. Water tanks are sustainable and have a long life span.

Hippo Water Rollers

Hippo Water Rollers bring immediate relief to the water scarcity and transportation problems faced by so many rural communities. The innovative design of the Hippo Water Roller (like an old-fashioned drum lawn roller) makes the task of collecting water much easier, and far less time-consuming. The Rollers have a 90-liter capacity – a great improvement on the usual 5-liter containers carried on the head.

Borehole Drilling

Using a borehole is great as it is a sustainable natural water source and could be argued to be even better than mains water. The So Foundation aim to provide communities with borehole drilling and pump facilities creating clean water sources for thousands of people.

Primary Healthcare Centers

Despite vast advances made in medicine over the past decades, many communities in Africa still do not have access to medical facilities and primary healthcare. Various factors such as poverty, malnutrition and unemployment all contribute to ill health. The So Foundation will assist by facilitating the building of clinics and accommodations for staff and the upgrading of existing, but inadequate, primary healthcare clinics. In Burkina Faso, there are government clinics which attempt to provide for the local people, but they are under-equipped, lacking in resources and poorly maintained. The So Foundation is committed to ensuring that better facilities are put in place.

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