GUEST SPEAKER: Ron Denham – Water Project in Ghana
David Penney introduced Ron Denham. Ron, a member of the Rotary Club of Toronto-Eglinton, is also a Past District Governor of District 7070. His work on water projects is known worldwide. Ron is also Chair Emeritus of WASRAG ( The Water and Sanitation Rotary Action Group) (see: https://www.wasrag.org/ ) . Ron is the recipient of the Dr. Bpb Scott Disease Prevention Award for his outstanding work in water and sanitation work worldwide.
The Ghana project is the largest project Internationally outside the Polio campaign.
It all started when Ron met a group of people in Mexico City, in 2007, to form a partnership with USAID to pick joint water projects and countries to support and develop water projects. The partnership agreed that Ghana was chosen. A large Rotarian presence in Ghana and that certainly helps with Rotary funded projects.
Ghana, which already had bore hole water projects in use, and they decided to expand on these.
TheRotary – USAID partnership split Ghana into 4 regions to supply much needed water. The partnership developed 4 areas of Ghana for the bore hole well project . The partnership went back to see Phase One and to seehow sustainable the project has been. It was found that 2 of the 4 existing projects are still working.
Time to fix the 2 areas of the country. They hired a Project manager to oversee operation and ongoing maintenance of the systems. The solution is a bore system using a combination of solar power with a submersible pump combination was decided to be used, after thorough research on existing systems. The project includes 125 units to be constructed, of which approximately 85 have been completed. It is ready to be completed in these 2 remaining areas of Ghana.
The project was highlighted a few months ago in Rotarian magazine. (see: https://www.rotary.org/en/rotary-usaid-sustainability-challenge )
Here is a link to the project: https://www.rotary.org/en/usaid
This is a $4 million (USFunds) project. $2 million is funded by USAID. $2 million from Rotary. Thru grants from the Rotary Foundation , $1.8 million was donated. That left $200,000 . The local clubs in Ghana, donated , as did the funds from the Arch Klumph donation from our very own Devon and Linda Biddle which left $20,000 to raise. Our District has agreed to put in $10,000 of District Designated Funds and the District 7070 is asking the Rotary Clubs of District 7070 to come up with the remaining $10,000. We think we are there, thanks in part to our own Rotary Club for their $2500 donation.
Special thanks to Devon and Linda for their generous donation from funds when they became members of the Arch Klumph Society.
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Questions:
Lennis asked why they did not use swamp purification. ….Ron indicated it was not viable, Devon supported this with the fact that the surface water and area was to polluted.
Ron was asked how deep are the bore hole wells….. he indicated 80 to 100 meters and tests showed that they did not need purification.
Ted thanked Ron for being such a great orator on the subject and that we are making a donation to eradicate Polio on his behalf.
President Lennis closed meeting at 7.45 pm.
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