📋 Tender Overview
In Tonkolili, Sierra Leone, we provide care for pregnant women and children. We support the health centre at Mile 91 and 12 outreach units in villages in the district. We also work to ensure access to clean water.
Healthcare is more than access to medicines and medical personnel. Access to clean water and healthy hygiene practices also play a role in promoting and maintaining people’s overall health. Of the 12 communities where MSF supports peripheral health units in Tonkolili, Sierra Leone , seven had no clean water, especially during the dry season, and most relied on rivers and swamps to obtain water for daily activities.
Access to safe drinking water in Sierra Leone, as well as water sanitation, is limited. Twenty-three percent of the country’s population does not have access to basic water services and approximately 58 percent use unsafe water sources such as rivers, dams and unprotected water wells, according to a 2023 report by UNICEF and the National Institute of Health. Access to safe drinking water is especially difficult in rural areas of the country, where most people rely on hand-dug wells and surface water.
“We get water from the reservoir on our farm or from the Pampana River, which is a few minutes away from our village. We know that the water is dirty, it is brown. But we have no other choice. We have to drink, cook and bathe,” Aminata, a resident of Masiperr village.
Communities have faced several outbreaks of diseases such as scabies, typhoid fever and diarrhoea due to inadequate supply of clean water and unhygienic practices.
“Most people in these communities use a bucket to fetch water from these sources and leave it there for a few hours, hoping that the solid particles floating in the water will settle to the bottom ,” explains Sheku Jabbie, MSF health promotion supervisor in Tonkolili district. “After a few hours, the water becomes clear and they then drink it, being careful not to move the bucket so that the particles do not float to the top. This practice has become common . ”
It wasn't always like this. A few years ago, many people had access to hand-dug wells, built by people in these communities or private organizations, that provided water all year round. But now, due to multiple factors, including climate change, the wells are not as full as they used to be during the rainy season and are dry the rest of the year.
“We used to get a lot of diarrhoea cases at the clinic and this is because of the water used here in the community ,” says Aminata Bangura, a Ministry of Health nurse working at the Masiperr peripheral health unit. “Even we, the health workers, use it at the clinic, but we boil the water first or use water filters. These filters are not enough to supply the entire community . ”
Our work to provide clean water
To address these challenges, MSF drilled seven wells in Tonkolili district, equipped with hand pumps. This was next to the peripheral health centres in Masengbeh, Foindu, Petifu Fulamasa, Makondu, Makeni Rokefullah and Masiperr villages, as well as next to Ester’s clinic in Mile 91 township. The wells were completed in June 2024 and will serve as a reliable and safe source of drinking water for years to come. They were drilled during the dry season after a geophysical survey was conducted to ensure they were optimally located to produce drinking water and at a depth that would ensure communities had access to water all year round.
Water samples from each well were sent to the National Water Quality Laboratory in Freetown to ensure it is safe for use. The results showed that the water met World Health Organization recommendations for safe drinking water.
What's next now that there are water wells?
MSF has begun training members of each community where wells were built to repair minor faults. Further training will focus on how to operate and maintain the wells. Repair tool kits, including spare parts, will also be provided to communities. As one of the Sustainable Development Goals targets is to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all by the end of 2030, more needs to be done to support this effort.
“These wells belong to the people ,” says Mohamed Kuyateh, MSF water and sanitation supervisor. “They are here to serve them for a long time. We want communities to be equipped to ensure that the wells can do that . ”
