Finally, It's Up and Running

It has been smelting hot in Dakar. The daytime temperature hovers around 95° F with almost 95% humidity. And on top of that there is no breeze. But all the heat and discomfort associated with it could not dampen the enthusiasm of the volunteers who worked tirelessly to filter the beach sand to collect sand of a specific grain size. The sand is the most important component of the filter. Using wrong grain of sand in the filter may not remove all the soap and detergent from the water which may result in the failure of the filter.  The volunteers used home-made sieves with special screens to collect the specific kind of sand needed for this filter.

Here is the fully functional filter. This is the final product of all the hard work of many young volunteers of BanlieueUP group. 

Big Community Meeting

Any community project cannot succeed unless the community has accepted it and has become part of it. This project is no exception. To share information about the project and engage the community members in discussion, El Hadji Abou Gueye and the officials of the NGO BanlieueUp invited the residents of Banlieue neighborhood. The meeting was attended by almost 150 community members. After sharing information about Mandela Washington Fellowship program, Achal gave the presentation about the filter and discussed its benefit to homeowners as well as to the community. The response was overwhelming. Community members were excited and eager to learn more about the filter. The meeting went on for about 2 hours. Here are some pictures from that big community meeting.

Meeting with the national leader

Dr. Cheikh Tidiane Gadio is a highly liked national leader in Senegal. He was the Foreign Minister of Senegal from 2000 to 2009. Currently, he is the President of the Institute for PanAfrican Strategies (IPS). The meeting was attended by Dr. Gadio's advisers, many community leaders and activists. The meeting was planned for one hour but went on for almost two hours. Dr. Gadio was very impressed with the project and it's potential to save water and money to the families. This project will also help the environment and support local economy to grow. He has pledged his full support to the project and offered any help from his office to make this pilot project a national success.  

Here are some picture from that meeting at Dr. Gadio's office.