9River completes second of ten WASH projects in Calabatown

 




When Oprah Winfrey founded the Leadership Academy for Girls in 2007, she became a symbol in Johannesburg, South Africa, and for many schools across Africa.

Sadly, the Oprah Winfrey Kindergarten and Primary School in Calaba Town, Sierra Leone (also founded in 2007) has never had quite enough to keep it running like the one that the famous American billionaire is personally invested in. Still, the community keeps striving to break the cycle of poverty.

Calaba Town lies on the outskirts of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. Built after the Civil War (1991–2002), the reconstruction town is home to internally-displaced people who relocated.  

In 2009, the Madieu Williams Foundation funded a primary school named after American footballer's mother, Abigail D. Butscher, in Calaba Town. 

Sierra Leonean-born Williams played in America's National Football League (NFL). He was drafted in 2004 and went on to play for NFL teams in Minnesota, San Francisco, and the football team formerly known as the Washington Redskins.


While the quality of services such as water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) may differ between schools in Johannesburg and Calaba Town, the classifications of improved and unimproved facilities are the same.

That is why the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children's Fund joined together to monitor Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets for universal access to water and sanitation for all.

The hope is to achieve access to adequate sanitation and hygiene and end unsafe defecation, paying particular attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations.

More than 800,000 people die each year because of unsafe sanitation and hygiene, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

On World Toilet Day in 2018, Nine River (9River) Media pledged to fund the construction of toilets for hundreds of school children who have no access to safely managed sanitation in Freetown, Sierra Leone.


In October 2020, 9River and its charitable arm, the Hannah Deen for Social Care organization, celebrated the completion of the first toilet block in Calaba Town and Allen Town.  Work at the Vision Academy International School in Kola Tree, Calabatown, began at the end of 2019.

 

In December 2020, Foday Conteh, the building contractor, began work on the second toilet block in Calaba Town and Allen Town.  On Monday, April 19, 2021, Foday and Mr. Lebbie, the town chairman, joined the school principal, teachers, and students of the Oprah Winfrey Kindergarten and Primary School to celebrate the opening of the new WASH facility.  

On this day in 1971, Sierra Leone became the Republic of Sierra Leone. 































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