June 2011 – Mission to Ghana

Tennessee volunteers provide life changing clean water, medical care, and school support as part of Rotary humanitarian service work.

The numbers are staggering. Over 800 million people lack access to safe water supplies, about one in eight people on the planet. Over 3.5 million people die each year from water-related diseases, 84% are children. Lack of access to clean water and sanitation kills children at a rate equivalent to a jumbo jet crashing every four hours. The ancient Romans had better access to water supplies than half the people on Earth now. How can anyone tackle such an overwhelming challenge? One clean water well at a time, teamwork and a sustained, persistent effort was the response of Rotarians in the Upper Cumberland.

The Cookeville Breakfast Rotary Club, as part of Rotary’s international, humanitarian focus, became involved in water well drilling projects in Africa several years ago following the leadership of the Crossville Rotary Club. They had identified a collection of small villages in Western Ghana where access to clean water was an acute problem and asked other Rotarians to get involved. The villagers relied on surface drinking water sources, which posed the threat of bacterial and parasitical diseases like guinea worm infestation, typhoid and cholera. They had to carry pots of water from great distances to villages, which consumed much time and was a serious impediment to development.

Rotarians from the Crossville and Cookeville Breakfast Clubs make regular visits to Ateiku, Ghana to advance the mission of bringing accessible, clean drinking water to villages. Checking pumps and wells for proper operation and water purity are (L-R) Scot Shanks, Reverend Lawrence Oduro of Ateiku, Arthur Gernt and Patrick Ryan.

The Cookeville Breakfast Club started with a contribution of $3000 to build one well, one of 40 built by a partnership of local Rotary clubs and matching grants from the Rotary Foundation. That well was installed in the village of Huni Valley, in Western Ghana, where three wells served about 16,000 people. The next step for the Breakfast Rotary Club was accepting an invitation for a Rotarian to travel to Ghana with a team led by the Crossville Club in October 2009 to inspect all of the Rotary funded wells in the area, making sure they were functional and the water was pure.

The 2009 visit spawned new avenues for humanitarian aid. A request for medical help led the Rotary team to raise $5000 to fund a health fair in Ateiku, a village without a permanent medical facility or doctors. The funds were used to purchase medicines and bring in a medical team from cities in Ghana for a one-day clinic that saw over 1,000 people who otherwise would do without medical, optical and dental care. One member of the team, Michelle Sager, a German teenager who had been an exchange student in Crossville, raised money in her hometown of Hamburg to contribute to a school literacy effort. So there were also visits to distribute supplies and soccer balls to small, impoverished schools.

Rotarians Patrick Ryan and Arthur Gernt were among a team that visited schools in Western Ghana with soccer balls and school supplies as they inspected nearby Rotary sponsored water wells in October 2009.

The water project continued in the following months with the Crossville and Cookeville Breakfast Clubs working together to build a web site (www.RotaryGhanaProject.com) and to raise funds for the next phase of the well drilling work. The first effort to drill wells around Ateiku included funding for a vehicle-borne portable rig for a team from the area that was trained to drill and build the Rotary funded wells. It was such a success that the team partnering with Rotary was offered commissions to construct more new wells. So the second phase, which required a new, heavy duty drilling rig and a replacement vehicle, involved the Rotary team raising over $50,000 for a loan, $7500 from the Cookeville Breakfast Club, to bootstrap a self-sustaining water well drilling cooperative.

This spring Scot Shanks, from the Crossville Club and Patrick Ryan, from the Cookeville Breakfast Club put together plans for another team visit to Ateiku, using the earlier successful template: water well drilling, medical assistance and school literacy support. They recruited volunteers from the community including medical doctors Kim Johnson of Crossville and Rotarian Charles Womack of Cookeville, Rodney and Kelly French of Nashville and Kayde Johnson and Colleen Ryan, high school students from Crossville and Cookeville respectively. They all gave their time and covered their own travel, lodging and meal costs.

A Rotary sponsored team recently went to Ateiku, Ghana for humanitarian service work. It included: (L-R) Kayde Johnson, Dr. Kim Johnson, Scot Shanks, Kelly French, Rodney French, Dr. Charles Womack, Patrick Ryan and Colleen Ryan.

The trip was set for early June but much of the important work was done in the weeks before. To support the medical clinic about $7500 was raised from local Rotary Clubs, including a grant from the Rotary district; individuals and the Cookeville High School Interact Club. It was used to buy medicines and supplies, worth about $26,000 in retail value, to deliver from the United States; to fund a Ghanaian medical group at the health fair; and to support the school literacy project. Rotarians from the Cookeville Club and the Cookeville Breakfast Club met to sort and repack the tens of thousands of pills and supplies, aided by St. Michael’s Church and Cookeville’s Aphena Pharma Solutions.  In addition to support from Rotary Clubs in Middle Tennessee, Rotarians in Cheyenne, Wyoming joined in the effort with a donation to aid the humanitarian mission.

On June 2 the Rotary team was off to Ghana with doctors, volunteers, and duffel bags stuffed with medicines and soccer balls. The 12-hour flight from Atlanta to Ghana’s capital city, Accra, was followed by a six-hour drive, the last two bone-rattling hours beyond paved roads. They were hosted by the Ateiku Church of Christ, the Rotary partner for earlier water well drilling work and visits, and they hit the ground running, setting up the pharmacy the evening they arrived. This trip unlike earlier visits benefited from the opening of a medical facility in Ateiku earlier this year. Through the generosity of Christina Adcock of Texas and her family a two-story building was erected to serve as the Ateiku hospital. Although it had yet to be staffed and equipped the facility represented a significant leap forward and was instrumental in the health fair’s success. The next morning people from Ateiku and the surrounding villages seeking care were lining up early and everybody got busy getting medicines ready and coordinating with the assembled team of Ghanaian medical professionals.

Dr. Charles Womack of Cookeville was among the volunteers who traveled to Ateiku, Ghana in June 2011 to staff a medical clinic that saw about 2,500 villagers who might otherwise go untreated for serious illnesses.

Over the course of the week the doctors and medical staff saw several hundred people a day, starting early and working well into each evening. Dr. Womack noted that, “Many of the people were suffering from serious medical conditions; some were extremely ill.” He added, “There was a very high incidence of malaria and other diseases that were going undiagnosed and untreated.” All of the team members, besides Dr. Womack and Dr. Johnson, had important roles to play, working in the pharmacy, directly assisting the medical doctors seeing patients and helping to manage the traffic flow in the clinic. When pharmaceutical stocks ran low, especially to treat malaria, the team contributed another $1000 to ensure there were enough medicines to continue. “The people just kept coming, even when you think you’ve seen everyone who could be within traveling distance of Ateiku,” said Womack, adding, “ The waiting room and tent outside seemed to always be filled with people waiting to see the doctors and get medical care.”

Scot Shanks (R) of the Crossville Rotary Club was instrumental in starting the water well drilling effort in Ateiku years ago and in the financing and delivery of a new rig to Ghana, ensuring more accessible, clean water wells will be drilled.

While the health fair was in full swing Scot Shanks and Patrick Ryan took time away from the clinic to help set up the newly delivered well drilling rig, financed with help from Rotary Clubs in Tennessee. Shanks and Ryan had traveled to the rig factory in Alabama before the trip to become familiar with operation of the new drilling equipment so they could provide instruction to the team in Ateiku. That team had been involved in earlier Rotary sponsored water well drilling so they were quickly out in the field, on the job working on the first new well. The goal for the water project is to establish a self-sustaining capability to build wells through contracts with the Government of Ghana, non-governmental organizations and individuals, and the repayment of the microloan that purchased the equipment. The process was just one more innovative way to further the mission of bringing clean, safe drinking water to people who desperately needed it. “Once you’ve walked through these villages and see what difference these water wells have made in the lives of so many people who barely have the bare necessities you’ll never take running water for granted again,” said Ryan.

Rotary team members Kayde Johnson (Left, standing) and Colleen Ryan (Right, standing) delivered school supplies, soccer balls and hope in their visits to village schools in Western Ghana.

Several team members spent some time visiting small villages around Ateiku to deliver school supplies and soccer balls to needy students. Colleen Ryan and Kayde Johnson traveled to a nearby town to buy notebooks, pens, pencils, dictionaries and other materials for the schools. “The schools were not what I was expecting,” said Ryan. “They were out in the forests, down dirt rounds and at the end of dirt paths. The kids there had little more than a desk and a roof over their heads; there were no windows or doors.” She added, “But they were clearly excited to see that there were people who wanted to help them. It was mind blowing that they were happier to get a pencil than some kids in the States are to get a new car.” Most of the money needed for the supplies was provided by a grant from the Cookeville High School Interact Club students.

The week in Ateiku flew by with the medical clinic serving about 2500 people from Ateiku and nearby hamlets; the next phase of bringing safe, accessible water to tens of thousands of people; and young Americans building bridges of hope with young Ghanaians. There were many signs that a small group with the backing of many back home could effect change, among them were the words of one teacher who watched American teenagers spending time with her students, “Please promise to come back,” she said. “We need more help.”

There are many people to thank for making the Rotary Ghana Project service a success, particularly the team that made the trip giving up their time, convenience and personal expenses. There are the many Rotary Clubs, the CHS Interact Club and the individuals who contributed money to the medical fair, the water well drilling work and the school literacy support. There are also the many individuals and businesses in Cookeville that each year support the Rotary Golf Classic tournament in September and the Rotary International Night in January, the major sources of financial support that make these good works possible. Thank you!

The plans for the Rotary trip to Ghana that begins tomorrow began to take shape over a year ago and there are a great many people who have pitched in since then to make it possible. The trip is the latest in an effort launched by the Crossville (TN) Rotary Club a half dozen years ago to build water wells in Western Ghana, in and around the village of Ateiku. Clean water for the people there is a game-changer, as you can see from the stories and videos on the RotaryGhanaProject.com web site.

In October 2009 the Cookeville Breakfast Rotary Club became involved in the hands on effort by joining in a trip to Ateiku for follow up in the water well project in addition to sponsoring a health fair and school literacy work — again, as documented in this site’s videos.

The June 2011 trip is the realization of plans that originally intended for a team to go in October 2010. The timing didn’t work out for the medical doctors we were hoping to bring but now we’re ready to go.

This team includes Scot Shanks, Dr. Kim Johnson, Kayde Johnson, of Crossville; Dr. Chuck Womack, Colleen Ryan and Pat Ryan, of Cookeville, and Rodney and Kelly French of Nashville. The mission is to help launch the operation of the new water drilling rig, to organize health fairs and to support the schools in the area around Ateiku.

A few thank yous are in order on the eve of the trip.

First, there was the $53,000 raised to finance a new water well drilling rig and support vehicle. This part of the project is a loan to our partners and friends in Ateiku to develop a self sustaining enterprise within their non-profit group that will enable them to get the urgently needed wells drilled in the area, under contract from the Government of Ghana, other non-governmental organizations and individuals. The plan is to create the capability for a self-sustaining water drilling capacity. Hats off to Scot Shanks who drove to Phenix City, Alabama to train on the drilling rig at the factory to help make sure the team in Ghana is properly prepared to get to work.  These clubs helped make it possible:

Cookeville Breakfast Rotary Club – $7,500
Crossville Rotary Club – $7,000
Rotary Club of Knoxville – $5,000
Dayton Rotary Club – $3,000
Hartsville Rotary Club – $1,250
Carthage Rotary Club – $1,250

These clubs joined the efforts of the Enterprise Christian Ministry of Texas in making the new water drilling rig effort possible. More info is on the site at this link. (Special thanks to Rotary District 6780′s new governor Frank Rothermel for his support of this effort.)

Colleen Ryan helped get medicines, soccer balls and other supplies ready for the trip to Ghana.

Second, the medical clinics set for the June visit to Ateiku required medicines, equipment and support from medical professionals in Ghana. To make this possible about $7000 was raised. About $4000 of that went directly to buy pharmaceuticals in connection with our partner St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Cookeville and the materials were ordered through Blessings International. About $26,000 worth of medicines, if purchased on the wholesale market, are being taken to Western Ghana for the medical fairs, along with our two Tennessee MDs and team of volunteers.

Lastly, a portion of the money raised will be used for school support — purchase of school supplies once we’re in Ghana and bringing soccer balls to go along with school supply deliveries. You can see how well this type of effort was received in the videos on the web site. There are many people to thank but special acknowledgement goes to the Cookeville Breakfast Rotary Club. Through the International Night event in January and other fund raising, $2500 was put up toward a matching DIstrict Simplified Grant, with the CBR funding the match portion, pending reimbursement from the District. Generous support from the Jamestown and Smithville Rotary clubs helped to fund the effort. We also want to thank Bob Gunter and Johnny Hall of the CBR for the individual support, and to CBR International Service Director Corinne Darvennes. Special thanks to the Cookeville High School Interact Club, and the leadership of Ms. Nadine Jones, for their generosity in the school materials support department — that’s a lot of cars washed to buy school supplies in Ghana – Thanks guys. We can’t forget to thank everyone who came out to sort pills at St. Michael’s in preparation for the trip and to the Reverend Joe Weatherly, St. Mike’s Rector, for his support at every step.

I hope we haven’t left anyone out. We’ll make it up in future journal entries here.

But for now, thanks to everyone who made this service work possible and thanks to Rotary for making this a better world through service opportunities.

TIME SENSITIVE NEED FOR SUPPORT – PLEASE ACT NOW

GHANA PROJECT NOTES FOR COOKEVILLE BREAKFAST ROTARY CLUB MEMBERS AND OTHER INTERESTED FOLKS

1. Rotarians Needed. The shipment of medicines and materials going to Ghana on June 2 arrived and will be unpacked, sorted, and prepared for travel on Thursday at 7pm at St. Michael’s Church on North Washington Avenue. Volunteers are needed for the two-hour session to repackage materials to be ready for distribution in Ghana. Contact Pat Ryan @ 931-261-2353 for details and to sign up. Thanks!

2. The Ghana service project sponsored by your CBR Club gets underway soon. An eight person team will be flying out on June 2 for humanitarian service work in Ateiku, Ghana through June 11. The goals are to follow up on water well drilling work started years ago by the Crossville RC with support of our club and others. This will include supporting set up and training on the new water well drilling rig purchased with major support of CBR. Scot Shanks and Pat Ryan recently visited the factory in Phenix City, Alabama to be trained and to video record procedures to operate and maintain the new equipment. Once in operation the equipment you helped provide will make it possible for tens of thousands of people in villages around Ateiku to enjoy clean, safe drinking water and will prevent untold numbers of chronic diseases and parasitic maladies.

The team includes two medical doctors, Dr. Kim Johnson of Crossville and Dr. Chuck Womack of Cookeville, who will head up medical clinic sessions, alongside a team of Ghanaian medical professionals, that are expected to see several thousand patients who otherwise lack health care. Your support of this aspect of the trip included a $2500 grant, matched by a District Simplified Grant, to buy medicines and materials to make the health clinics possible. Other Rotary Clubs that contributed to the effort include Jamestown, Smithville and Cheyenne, Wyoming, the last of those learned about our work through the www.RotaryGhanaProject.com web site.

Another feature of the trip will be support to local impoverished schools including delivery of schools supplies and soccer balls. Rodney and Kelly French and high school students Colleen Ryan of Cookeville and Kayde Johnson of Crossville round out the volunteers on the team.

The team has incurred some unexpected expenses as they prepare for the significant work they have ahead of them so if any individuals care to contribute to this terrific humanitarian service work, done in our names, please contact Pat Ryan (931-261-2353) or check the CBRotary.com web site for a way to make a donation with a credit card.

IF YOU CAN SUPPORT THE GHANA PROJECT OF THIS CLUB PLEASE CLICK HERE TO MAKE AN ONLINE DONATION OR SEND A CHECK TO “COOKEVILLE BREAKFAST ROTARY CLUB, P.O. BOX 382, COOKEVILLE, TN 38503.” PLEASE MARK “GHANA PROJECT” ON THE CHECK. FUNDS ARE NEEDED IN HAND BY MAY 30, 2011 TO BE APPLIED TO THE JUNE SERVICE WORK IN GHANA. THANKS SO MUCH!

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Just when you think you’ve gotten too many emails to go through you find a gem in your inbox. It happened this morning when this one appeared:

Subject: Support for Ghana Water Project

Gentlemen: Cheyenne Wyoming Rotary Club 1129 is interested in providing support for your Ghanaian project. The club is offering $2500 as a “challenge grant” if another Club will match the offer.

OK, Rotarians .. here’s the chance to double the power of your club’s contribution to bring clean drinking water — truly a game changer — to the lives of thousands of people. If you and your club can meet the challenge of the Cheyenne Wyoming Rotary Club 1129 give us a call or email:

PatRyan@RotaryGhanaProject.com
(931)230-5732

Make it your goal to have your club announce on World Water Day, March 22, that you acted to save lives through your gift. Remember in the time it takes you to get up and go get a glass of (clean) water a child somewhere in the world has died because they don’t have any.

Thanks, Cheyenne!!!

***

The gift of water is a gift of life.

A team of Rotarians from Tennessee’s Upper Cumberland region will lead a mission to Western Ghana in June 2011 for service work. Details are still being worked out but the group will focus on medical needs of the villages in the area around Ateiku. We hope to bring several American doctors and medical professionals on this trip to attend to people in this poorly served area of the country. Expressions of interest from medical professionals are welcome and additional details will be provided to anyone who would like to contact us about his trip. Contact here.

Well done to everyone who pitched in to put together a package of aid for a water well drilling rig and support vehicle in Ateiku, Ghana.  As described in the detailed earlier postings we aimed to fund, through a short-term loan, the purchase of a new, heavy-duty water well drilling rig that will provide the ability of our community partners in Ateiku to expand the supply of clean water, while establishing a commercial capability for long-term well drilling capacity.

To accomplish this goal of getting more clean water to people who need it we sought to raise $53,000 for a loan to purchase the rig and vehicle. The following Rotary Clubs stepped up to get it done:

Cookeville Breakfast Rotary Club – $7,500
Crossville Rotary Club – $7,000
Rotary Club of Knoxville – $5,000
Dayton Rotary Club – $3,000
Hartsville Rotary Club – $1,250
Carthage Rotary Club – $1,250

As our fundraising effort proceeded we were joined by the Enterprise Christian Ministry of Texas, another organization very involved in humanitarian service work in Ghana for the balance of the funds. We are very happy to partner with ECM to make this great work possible.

There are scores of wells that need to be drilled, for which there are contracts waiting to be fulfilled — from government, NGOs and individuals. The new drill rig will provide clean, accessible drinking water for tens of thousands of people, not to mention associated jobs. The profits from the drilling contracts will enable the loan to be paid back over two years and provide a continuing commercial capability to drill more rigs in the long term.

[Note: The water well drill rig is being purchased from Hydra-Fab Manufacturing, Inc., a Model #KD2600, 26HP Kohler Diesel Hydraulic Trailer Rig.  Crew training in Ghana is being provided by Hydra-Fab. Check here for their web site.]

This effort is a great example of what can be done when people join together.

Thanks to everyone involved!

FROM A LETTER SENT TO CLUB AND OTHER LEADERS IN ROTARY DISTRICT 6780 IN TENNESSEE

We’re writing you today to share important news about an opportunity to make a difference – bringing clean water to villages in Western Ghana. You are being contacted because of your leadership positions in Rotary District 6780, your commitment to service and your ability to connect this opportunity with others.

We can get you more details but here’s the gist of it:

Rotarians from the Crossville and Cookeville Breakfast Rotary Clubs with help from others in the district, have been engaged in water well drilling work in Ateiku, Ghana for several years. The payoff has been 39 Rotary supported wells that are serving tens of thousands of people who would otherwise have to travel miles to collect surface water of questionable quality – parasites like guinea worm and diseases like typhoid were common water-borne afflictions.

The success of the water project was the result of Rotary funding the purchase of a basic water drilling rig, a vehicle and materials, along with training for a team in Ghana. The rig enabled them to go deeper to produce more reliable wells than the previous hand-dug wells were able to do. For a number of years they have been building wells across a wide region around Ateiku. Rotary’s partners in Ghana, an organization called the REDP, now have an opportunity to move the water well production work to a new level. Based on the results they have produced a number of people – the Government of Ghana, non-governmental organizations, and individuals – have offered contracts to produce wells for a fee. However, REDP needs new equipment to step up to these offers. A new drilling rig is necessary for two reasons: First, the current rig has been worked hard for a number of years and is in need of overhaul or replacement. Second, and more importantly, the first rig was not capable of drilling in rocky soil and the requests for new work will include areas where rocky ground will probably be encountered. With the old rig if they set up and drill into a rock, they’re done, no well. Also, the truck and support equipment they have been using for years are in need of replacement.

So here’s the concept being pursued by Rotarians who have been engaged in this project for years. A total of $53,000 is needed to buy a new rig, the right rig for the proposed work, a vehicle and support materials. Rather than raise money and provide a grant we propose to make a loan to the REDP so they can accept and perform the contract work, and pay back the funds provided. This would give them a sustainable ability to produce clean drinking water, wells in expanded areas of Western Ghana.  It would give them the capability to continue well drilling into the future without periodic interventions for support.

Scot Shanks, of Crossville and Pat Ryan of Cookeville Breakfast have approached a number of Rotarians – clubs and individuals – to offer the opportunity to take a “share” of the loan, currently set at $5,000 a share, to make the financial transactions more manageable. So far $20,000 has been pledged from four individuals – including the organizers of this effort who wanted to be sure to have “skin” in the game. One Rotary club has indicated an interest in splitting a share with another club or individual.

The conditions for the loan are non-interest, to keep it simple, with payback beginning six months after the project is initiated, with a target final payment made 24 months later. It is not a secured loan and there are no guarantees on repayment. It is the good faith of our partners in Ghana, the Rural Evangelical Development Project in Ateiku, that District 6780 Rotarians have come to know over the years. Scot Shanks and Pat Ryan will remain engaged in the project over the term and will be traveling to Ateiku in June 2011 to coordinate on this work and other service projects.

With about a month left to collect pledges for the funds we are seeking Rotary clubs and/or individuals to snap up the remaining six shares. That’s all that’s needed to get it done. And everyone who gets this letter already knows that providing clean drinking water in parts of the world that don’t have it is a game-changer. If you check the ‘overview’ video on the www.RotaryGhanaProject.com web site you’ll be reminded of what this is all about.

Please consider this opportunity to make a difference. Talk with your club’s Rotarians and share this information with other individuals who might want to participate. If one full share is not in a club’s or individual’s range please check with other clubs and individuals nearby to see if joining together is possible.

You can get more information and/or a club visit/briefing by contacting Scot Shanks or Pat Ryan.

TIME IS SHORT FOR US TO GET THIS DONE.  WE NEED PLEDGES OR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST BY SEPTEMBER 30, 2010.  PLEASE ACT TODAY!

p. s. We again thank all the clubs that donated to last year’s Rotary Ghana Project work in Ateiku making possible the ad hoc medical health clinic set up during the Rotary visit. The Rotarians who were there can testify that your support produced magnificent results. There are over 1,000 people who were seen at the clinic who now know that the words Rotary + Tennessee = Hope.

The Rotary Ghana Project is an ad hoc committee formed by members of the Crossville Rotary Club and the Cookeville Breakfast Rotary Club to facilitate international service work – water projects, school literacy work, medical support, etc. – and we welcome active participation by others. Please check the web site for more information, especially through the videos that were produced during the last visit to Ateiku.

Scot Shanks, Crossville Rotary Club
Tel: 931.484.5155 x118 / email: scot.shanks@gmail.com
Patrick W. Ryan, Cookeville Breakfast Rotary Club
Tel: 931.261.2353 / email: patryan@rotaryghanaproject.com

WATER AS A “GAME CHANGER”

Your help is needed now. Please consider supporting this humanitarian effort — through cooperation within and among Rotary Clubs and/or individuals.

PLEDGES OR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST ARE NEEDED BY SEPTEMBER 30, 2011. Contacts below.

Background
In October 2009 a group of Rotarians from clubs in Crossville and Cookeville traveled to Ateiku, Ghana to coordinate with local Rotarians and the Rural Evangelism Development Project (REDP) staff on international service work, pri- marily the Rotary Foundation grant project to drill water wells. They found a well organized effort on the ground — a result of several years of fundraising and grant writing — that produced 29 wells providing clean drinking water to thousands of people. The wells were the result of a Rotary-funded project that provided a drilling rig, support equipment and materials. Local laborers were trained to do the work in what was to become an ongoing capability to produce clean drinking water wells. During the 2009 visit Rotarians were shown examples of the fetid ponds and standing water where villagers drew their water prior to the Rotary funded wells. Mr. Lawrence Oduro of the REDP explained that these sources, often long distances from village centers, were the origin of numerous water borne ill- nesses such as guinea worms, chronic intestinal disorders and infectious diseases, especially typhoid fever. The incidence of these chronic afflictions has greatly diminished with the provision of clean water wells. The ability to access clean water is considered a game changer – it permits people to focus on educating their children and building sustainable economic futures.

What’s Next?
Rotarians from Crossville and Cookeville are planning the next steps to expand the clean drinking water program in Western Ghana. They have received a proposal from REDP Director Lawrence Oduro, the Rotary contact on the ground who has orchestrated the first 29 wells, for the next level of effort. It involves funding — through an unse- cured loan to the REDP — for a new drilling rig and vehicle. The new rig, a more capable water driller, will permit the team to penetrate rocky areas where the first generation drill could not. The concept is to assist our friends Ateiku in obtaining the necessary equipment so they can take contracts from the Government of Ghana and other organizations, which have been impressed by their work on the Rotary Foundation project, to have wells drilled throughout the region. The REDP will be paid for these wells. The loans from Tennessee Rotary Clubs and individu- als will be repaid and the REDP will have established a self-sustaining capability to drill more wells throughout Western Ghana.

How Will It Work?
The REDP has made a request to Rotarians from Crossville and Cookeville Rotary Clubs to provide a loan for $53,000 to cover the cost of purchasing a drilling rig from a firm in Alabama (it was examined by Mr. Oduro and Mr. Scot Shanks of the Crossville Club in April 2010) along with a towing/support vehicle to be procured in Ghana. The drill- ing rig manufacturer in Alabama has indicated he will travel, at his own expense, to Ghana to train the team on the new rig, as he is interested in helping in this important work.
The REDP proposal states that after a ‘grace period’ of six months during which they will begin to drill wells in the area, they will begin repayment of $2,300 per month. REDP states they have, so far, been asked to drill 48 wells by three organizations — two NGOs and one Ghanaian Government contract. They also have been asked to drill wells by 12 individuals.

The loan of $53,000 will be repaid within 24 months, following the six month grace period. The loan will be made to the REDP at no interest, in an effort to reduce the red tape and in the spirit of helping people. The loan will be “unsecured” in a traditional sense, but two of the principal contacts for this program in Tennessee are each putting up their own money to purchase “shares” of the funded amount, with full faith in complete repayment within the 24 month period.

What is needed now is for Rotary Clubs and individuals to make pledges. We believe a $5,000 share is a good target for clubs or individuals. We view this as the next step in the progression from helping by giving a grant to provide clean water, to making a loan to provide the capability for our friends in Ghana to make their own future.

If you are interested, and able, to extend a loan to bring the gift of clean drinking water, and to build a sustaining effort to spread that gift throughout the Ateiku, Ghana region please contact us for more information.

Scot Shanks, Crossville Rotary Club 931.484.5155 x 118 / scot.shanks@gmail.com
Patrick Ryan, Cookeville Breakfast Rotary Club 931.261.2353 / patryan@rotaryghanaproject.com

Thanks for taking a look at the work of Rotarians from the Crossville Club and the Cookeville Breakfast Rotary Club.  Rotarians from these with support from other clubs and individuals in the Upper Cumberland region of Tennessee are involved in international service work to help people in the Western Region of Ghana, in and around the village of Ateiku.  On these pages you’ll find background information about what has been done up until now, great videos of the story unfolding with the help of Rotary, and our plans for future service work in Ghana.  We hope you’ll become familiar with these works and, more importantly, that you will join us — either through hands on work in Ghana or through your financial support — to make a difference in the lives of people who need our help.

Thanks!