This weeks’ story is about the locality of Jean Rabel, in the communal section outside of Ouanaminthe. Our work with the Mayor and KASEK (lowest level elected authority) led to the people of Jean Rabel deciding they had had enough of dealing with their nearly broken down unmanaged pump. The story they heard from the Mayor and KASEK, about the possibility of having a managed well, intrigued them enough to the point they wrote a letter asking for help.
The first thing our animator noticed when he arrived to meet with the community was the prevalence of dirty buckets; everyone was using dirty buckets. Over the first couple meetings with the people of Jean Rabel, our animator communicated the importance of clean water and how it springs not only from the well itself, but in how they choose to transport and handle it.
The committee decided to begin spreading the word about this right away so as they began their census, they spoke with the head of every household, explaining not only of their initiative to get their well rehabbed, but also of the importance of “clean buckets”.
Over the next two weeks, our team began noticing that more and more clean buckets with lids were coming to the existing well, but where things really showed up was in the committees’ first public meeting. The people of Jean Rabel were so excited about the new “standard” of clean buckets, they brought their own buckets to the public meeting to show how “their bucket” was clean and had lids, just to show off for their neighbors. A true transformation happening in this area!
