Submitted by Ola Olugbodi, president of the eClub of the Southwest.
 
The Rotary eClub of the Southwest, through a district grant and support from Corral De Tierra Rotary District 5230, helped bring clean water to a rural community in Nigeria with its recent support of a water well ‘borehole' in Olurefe.
 
According to the United Nations, there are still 771 million people around the world that don’t have access to clean drinking water. When people, especially children, have access to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene, they lead healthier and more successful lives.
 
Rotary members integrate water, sanitation, and hygiene into education projects. When children learn about disease transmission and practice good hygiene, they miss less school. And they can take those lessons home to their families.
 
Advocating for clean water should be a top priority. For billions of people the MDG7 goal may be far from reach. It is of course a matter of human right, human dignity and of equity. Affordable and accessible clean water lead to better health and better life for mothers. Healthy mothers, liberated from the burden of walking long distance to fetch water can be more productive and more able to pay for the installation and maintenance of clean water supply. They can be powerful tools in advocacy efforts for more clean water and sanitation supply for all.
 
About 20–30% of pregnant women in Sub-Sahara Africa are infected with hookworms by walking or bathing in contaminated water and thus are at risk of preventable hookworm-related anemia. Anemia increases their risk of dying during pregnancy and delivering low birth weight babies who in turn are also at risk of dying.
 
Access to clean water is also an essential part of infection prevention in maternal care services.
 
Olurefe community is an agrarian community located at Orile - oje village in Ogo- Oluwa Local Government Area, of Ogbomoso in Oyo State in the South Western part of Nigeria. The population of the people in the community is about 400 people.
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One of the perennial challenges in Olurefe Community is the challenge of scarcity of potable water. Due to the topography of the community, most of the "well" sanks do not end up yielding potable water. During the dry season that usually runs for about four months, the community resorts to going about in search of water to drink and to use for other domestic activities. Women both young and old, including young men, trekked about in search of water for survival.
 
In the same vein, during the raining season, the community members resolved to collection of rainwater for their use, which is always not hygienic to their health.
 
Because of this perennial water challenge in Olurefe Community The Rotary eClub of the Southwest USA D5495, through a district grant and support from Corral De Tierra Rotary D5230 provided water well ‘borehole’’ to the community.
 
Upon the completion of the functional borehole for the community, the community members took over the maintenance of the borehole for its continuous use.