PROPOSAL FOR GRANTS OF USD$85,000 FOR COMMUNITY WATER PROJECTS:

BOREHOLES
I am the Project Director of Garram Childrens School and a Physics Lecturer, in the Department of
Physics, College Of Education , Gindiri, Plateau State, Nigeria [ www.coegindiri.net ]
I am writing on behalf of Garram Childrens School [Orphanage & Rehabilitation Centre] (hereinafter
referred to as GCS) to request your contribution towards raising the sum of USD$85000

to

support our water and sanitation PROGRAM for the welfare of communities where our over 200
hundred children live and come to school. We would like to give a borehole each to the following
communities: Puyam [ Pankshin LGA], Lepgang[Kangke LGA], Dungpopit[ Kangke LGA, Zam Gulung
and Zam Kwalta [ Kangke LGA], Zampet Terminus, Zampet Angwan Mission [Kangke LGA], Kanning
Dangkem [ Kangke LGA], Dimwai Rahama Hospital, Dimmwai Community [ Kangke LGA], Dungyel
Mission and Dungyel Community [Kangke LGA].
A total of 12 boreholes will be drilled for twelve communities who are hosting and accommodating
our children. These are rural farming communities with a minimum distance of two kilometers apart.
Children walk to and fro the school- Garram Childrens School [Orphanage & Rehabilitation Centre]
because we have no accommodation facilities for them.
The objects our school includes among others: The advancement of education, the
relief of the poor and the needy and to improve on the quality of life of the individual and family
especially and the society at large [ This has taken care of the education of Adults and children
who for some reasons cannot fit into the conventional system of education].
To bring hope to the poor, most neglected, helpless and needy children- orphans [Some
orphaned by AIDS] and the physically handicapped, regardless of race, sex, and religion
or/political views providing education for all children with the primary aim of educating needy
children who otherwise would live abandoned without education in our community of Garram.
More Information on our school can be obtained at
http://www.garramchildrensschoolandorphanage.org

Your support grant will help us in our efforts to better the lives of the poor who live in the
most remote rural areas. It will give direct help to the very poorest (mostly children orphans
and the handicapped) at the bottom of the ladder of our socio-economic life. This project will
help alleviate the suffering of severely vulnerable children and will relieve people in need or
hardship, aged or sick, and to relieve distress.

Life in GCS

The School

Children getting water from a deep and dirty well

THE NEED FOR COMMUNITY BOREHOLES

In accessing the school and community water needs, it was found that the largest
barrier to the health of the school and community children in all our communities is
very poor due to lack of portable water and good sanitary conditions.
The schools latrines always collapse in the wet season because they are usually
made of non-durable materials. Our communities have none or very few latrines. It is
our desire that more durable pit latrines are constructed for us and boreholes are
sunk to provide us and our immediate community with better portable water.
Only 1% of the 30,000 households in all these communities have an average sanitary
facility- a simple pit latrine and only 5% of the 31 villages where our children live and
walk to school have a good source of water supply-natural springs-from which they
have their water. Majority of the community households take their water from the
three rivers which run through the districts carrying along with it dirts of all kinds
resulting from the unsanitary conditions of the communities. In the dry season
January to July, the rivers are completely dry and children have to queue up along
sand dug water holes spending hours fetching water in turns. Sometimes they fight
and most times they come late to school. Few hand dug wells are often dry and
contaminated resulting in several infections.

The most common and deadly diseases in Garram are Diarrhea, Typhoid, Eye
Infection, Skin and/Scalp Infection, Schistosomiasis and Malaria.
Every year there are many deaths in our communities related to unsafe water,
sanitation and hygiene, mainly through infectious diarrhea. The vast majority of
these deaths are children under the age of 5. These cases of diarrhea annually mean
that poor water; sanitation and hygiene are one of the leading causes of death and
disability in or feeder communities. Almost 20% of the population in each community
lack access to any form of improved water supply within 1 km of their homes.
Waterborne disease is a major threat to our children and community affecting their
poor economic base.

The child needs good water to grow

Children fetching water from a hand-dug well

Children fetching water from a hand-dug well

Water is used for general purposes and must be dirty unsuitable for drinking

Children and teachers carry water home from the school borehole 2-3 km away. This is a difficult task.

With your grant, our dream for our communities will be fulfilled. Water will flow into the peoples buckets easily

Your contribution to the implementation of this program will help the community to
prevent the contamination in their water supply, thus helping to eliminate the
possible spread of infection, and enable the school have healthy children. Thus,
making people healthier so that they can lead more productive and fulfilling lives.

This grant will go a long way in helping the school reach its goals. While ,the Millennium
Development Goal 7 Target 7c aims at Reducing by half the proportion of people without
sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation, this and other goals may not
be fulfiled for our school and communities in which our children live unless you dnate
part of your hard earn income to us to implement this Project.
With the water problem prevailing , we cannot : ensure that all our boys and girls complete
a full course of primary schooling, achieve full and productive employment and decent
work for all, including women and young people in Garram, Eliminate gender disparity in
primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015.
Furthermore, at current rates of borehole drilling and population growth, our communities
sanitation sector the MDG for 2015 (30% coverage) will not be reached for more than 30 years,
and full coverage will not be reached for more than 100 years unless you assist us to avoid the
serious consequences in terms of health, economic opportunity, and human dignity. The impact
on all these dimensions is felt particularly strongly by women, and poor households headed by
women are among the most severely affected.
Gender is central to water problem in all our communities because:
1. Women, and to a lesser extent children are primarily the ones who draw water for household
use, transport it home, store it until it is used, and use it for cooking, cleaning, washing, and
watering household animals.
2. Women and children negotiate with their neighbors for access to water supply, evaluate water
sources, analyze supply patterns, lobby relevant authorities, and launch protests when water
availability reaches dire levels.
3. Women and children in Garram usually spend up to 6-8 hours a day collecting water; this
often consume up to a third of daily caloric intake. Most of this water is fetched from outside
their households. We have found out that women in rural communities spent over four hours a
day gathering fire wood as fuel and water.
4. More than 50% of the primary school age girls in our communities are not in school Or go to
school late because of fetching water.
5 .Many infectious diseases are associated with poor water quality. Women bear the primary
burden of caring for the sick in our communities.
The project for which we are requesting funds will make a difference in the lives of children and
women in the following ways:
1. To make water safe for the school children and community,
2. To make homes free from water related diseases.,
3. It will prevent the deaths of young children caused by unsanitary conditions and water-bone
diseases,
4. Makes the people healthier so that they can lead more productive and fulfilling lives.
This will contribute a lot to poverty reduction. Most of the meager resources of the people are often
spent on the treatment of water related diseases. This will reduce childhood mortality from diarrhea
and will also improve basic economic and social conditions of over 12,000 inhabitants in general and the
over 200 children in the Garram Childrens School in particular.

In a male dominated cultural and rural setting, girls have no chance in life, especially access
to functional education since their education is seen as a waste. Girls are usually overworkedthey are responsible for fetching domestic water. In most cases this water source is diseased as it
is shared with animals. Girls are first to wake up in morning and last to sleep at night. When girls
5

from Garram Community drop out of school, they are trafficked to the city as housemaids with
no education or taken for marriage in their teenage. This has provided a cycle of illiterate
mothers. These, along with series of other discriminatory practices have affected girl-child
enrolment school attendance and performance in class. Lack of time for reading and doing class
work and the possibility of continuing to higher level of education with confidence is none
existent. This project seeks to address these challenges. This program intends to help girls in
particular and other disadvantaged children with readily available water in their respective
communities.

Future, ongoing support for the project will be supplied by each community through agreed
contribution for the costs of maintaining the equipment. Every household has agreed to pay a
monthly water rate of N 200 [USD$1.33] monthly per household for the cost of maintaining the
equipment. With our average household of 300 the sum of N 60,000 will be raised per months
and N 720,000 per annum [USD$4800] for the maintenance and sustaining a borehole in each
community a borehole is sunk.
Each community has agreed that the fetching of the water will be timed at the following times
daily: 6-8 AM and 2-6 PM. This will ensure that water will not be wasted.
Garram childrens school, agree to accept responsibility for the operation and technical conduct of this project and to
keep our donors informed of the projects progress and completion. We will accomplish this by providing written
reports [including the submission of receipts, invoices of purchases on the projects progress, photos].
Thanks for your time, attention and the anticipated positive assistance to us.
Sincerely,
For:

GARRAM CHILDRENS SCHOOL

By: _________________________
Mr. Tonchin A G Guse
Project Director
[email protected] , [email protected]
P .O. Box 6139, Anglo-Jos 930007,
Plateau State, NIGERIA, WEST AFRICA
http://www.garramchildrensschoolandorphanage.org