World Bank provides water, classrooms to rural communities in Kebbi
Help came to Kebbi State on Wednesday, when the World Bank-funded Community and Social Development Project (CSDP), provided mini motorised water schemes, constructed one block of classrooms and health post in Kuyu and Chalgai remote communities in Gwandu, Local Government.
The communities, in Kebbi Central Senatorial District, are located about 75km from the State capital.
The Kuyu community, with an estimated population of over 2000 people, are mainly farmers and cattle rearers, while the Chalgai, hard to reach village, with a population of over 800 inhabitants, are mainly subsistence farmers.
Speaking to NAN, Malam Bello Magawata, the 51-year-old Chairman, Kuyu Community Project Management Committee (CPMC), said: “this is the first time we have a motorised water scheme, block of classrooms and health post, since the inception of this community over 100 years ago.
He said no fewer than 1000 members of the community now fetched water from the water scheme daily, and over 500 cattle and rams drank from the borehole everyday, explaining further that hitherto the community relied on a 200m deep well for water, usually drawn by camels and donkeys.
Magawata said prior to the intervention of the CSDP in 2018, the community had its primary school operating under a tree with low pupil enrollment.
” I was born and brought up in this village over 50 years ago, I have never seen or heard of any water scheme, block of classrooms or health post provided for this community.
” We only see children in neighboring communities attending schools and become nurses, soldiers, engineers and all that, but we don’t have such educational or health facilities.
”If any member of the community falls sick or we have a pregnant woman, we usually rushed them to Gwandu Local Government in my old car, or on a donkey, and sometimes before we get to know many pregnant women lost their lives and their babies.”
Magawata, who thanked the CSDP for bringing relief to the inhabitants of the community, assured that the community would do everything possible to maintain the facilities.
Similarly, the Secretary of Chalgai, CPMC, Sani Mohammed, said before the construction of the Solar Mini Water Scheme by the CSDP, the community depended on an old well dug by the former Premier of Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello, in the First Republic.
Mohamed said the provision of the water scheme had improved the living condition and economic status of the people of the community.
” Our animals drink water at ease and we are also building many houses now due to the availability of water. No doubt the projects have changed the fortunes of this community,” he said.
Similarly, he said the provision of classrooms was a welcome relief to the people of the community, adding that in the past” we used to send our children to Tambuwal and Dogon Daji Local Governments, in Sokoto state, to attend Primary school.
Also, Malam Mode Umaru of Barama community that benefited from a 1.5 km drainage project, said since the construction of the drainage the community no longer suffered flooding of their farm lands and houses.
According to him, the community used to experience flood all over the town during the rainy season, but with the construction of the drainage the flooding had been contained.
” If not for the drainage, flood will have washed away all the community,” Umaru said.
The CSDP, is one of the developmental projects in the country’s World Bank portfolios, using a Community Driven Approach, by which communities are the drivers of their project needs.
The project provided 90 per cent of the funds for projects, solely initiated by poor communities, for which they contribute the rest 10 per cent in cash and in kind.
The objective of the project is to improve the access of the poor to social and economic infrastructure, while increasing the availability and management of development resources at community level. (NAN)
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