Sambacounda well


Sambacounda village, Senegal
HUmanitarian project by Balouo Salo
Realized (2018)

Sambacounda is a small village located in the region of Sedhiou (Senegal), of among 900 inhabitants, close to Kegnimacounda e Boukarkounda villages The area has just few wells, digged in with rural methods and not reaching the underground layer, empting out rapidly and causing serious problems on hydrical providing. More, the salt-intrusion phenomenon caused an acidification and contamined the underground soil and layer resulting in contamined and salted reservoirs. Children and older people are the most endangered with a 60% of illnesses due to contamined water with a high risk for infections, giardasis and cholera. The project aims to dig a modern reservoir reaching the underground layer to provide water at any time to Sambacounda and surrounding villages, equipped with an solar-supplied immersion pump and a desalination osmotic system decontamining and preventing from bacteria and viruses through UV ray, so providing high quality water. That will be also a chance to put more responsibility on communities about hydrical resources and gather a local team for the maintenance of filtering system. We estimate to reach about 3.000 individuals coming from Sambacounda and surrounding villages. This system represents an absolute technological innovation for the whole country of Senegal, an Humanitarian model aimed to promote water access, being that a primary resource for children’s life and wealth. The reservoir represents a referring point for hydrical providing for its realization technology, considered the lack of water in existing wells and their evanescent building methods. Thanks to its depth of 17 metres ( different from traditional ones of 5-7 mts) the well reaches the underground layer where mostly flows waters with higher quality level due to the flow itself and not coming from stagnant ones. Layer’s presence is a primary feature in preventing water during dry season, differently form other wells reaching undergound deposits. Water is extracted thanks to a 24V liftingimmersion pump supplied by two solar panels of 80W each, adding to its abundance coming from the simple reach of the layer.The system will send water on cycles (calibrated on communities usage) through a decontamination programme organized with the folloqing sequence: UV sterilisation -> sand filter -> osmotic filter. The filter cleans any deposit, but most of all from bacteria and viruses, desalining and providing high quality water . Once depurated, it is gathered and kept in two covered reservoirs in the shadow and prevented from alterations, being accessible at any time. Thanks to this programme communities and families will drink potable and safe water; , pregnant women,older people and children in particular are the most affected subjects from viruses spreaded by old reservoir deposits. The reservoir is featured by architecturals elements underlining its Iconic character and valorizing water matter, creating a social meeting point all around it.

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