I will never forget the day I first saw the impact a single borehole made. It was late on a hot, dry afternoon; there was a well installed in a Fawoade town in Ghana. We had a nice gathering of people around the borehole who came to grace the occasion and with their containers to fill with clean water for the very first time. It was a marvelous sight to see the feelings of relief and joy in their faces.
It hit me then: access to something as simple as water could completely make over a community. Where the landscapes are dominated by drought and scarce water sources, clean water is not just something one needs but nonetheless a lifeline.
It is for this reason that Hive Empowers Communities have developed a sustainable community-driven model of establishing sources
In all of our endeavours, we have closely worked with local leaders and chiefs to create a sustainable impact. This is not just about their well involvement in the project work but beyond the delivery of water itself to even more empowerment of communities to take responsibility for the resources themselves. The leaders in respective communities play a vital role in ensuring proper maintenance of each borehole and thereafter fostering a strong sense of ownership and pride within them.
Rather than stepping in and making direct repairs, Hive depends on the ability, commitment, and dedication of the community leaders to keep them running. This approach shifts control and care of the project to the very people it serves, thereby making them caretakers as well as beneficiaries. By cultivating this sort of ownership, we makes sure the boreholes aren't simply outside resources, but necessary and communal assets that residents commit to preserving.
Last year and this year too, we have paid visits to some of the boreholes to know about their state-Hive Borehole Monitoring. We were glad to learn that those we visited were all functioning well. These visits also provided us with the opportunity to hear from the local leaders and residents firsthand how life had changed. Children no longer needed to walk miles in search of water; they could now afford to focus on school. Mothers could fetch water in a few minutes instead of hours and therefore had more time to take care of families and their work.
The elders in the community speak specifically of a deep sentiment of pride in this matter, knowing they are entrusted with the care of such an essential resource. The idea acts to ensure these boreholes go on serving communities for generations and make lives better daily. Hive has created a real and a lasting impact with this project making this quite a great milestone.
The fact that these projects have been executed serves as testimony to the fact that community-owned, community-led initiatives indeed form a route to sustainable change. By placing responsibility in the hands of those who most need it, Hive's borehole projects serve as a reminder that sustainable impact needs to start with the people, creating a future where access to clean water is not a privilege but one of shared responsibility and a basic human right.
