All Blessings International in D.R. Congo: Fight Dysentery

Two more tiny lives lost to dysentery. These children were sent to extended family members when the epidemic started to hopefully help them avoid the bacterial infested water, but they got sick with the extended family members and were brought back to the orphanage late last week to die.

We have been working to find a solution - both immediate and long-term - and are very thankful to everyone who has contributed ideas. In order to help solve the problem, we need to know exactly what is causing it. This is what we know so far:

The orphanage, called Elikia (meaning 'hope'), prefers to use "city water" which is water pumped to various spigots around town from a deep well. Deep wells are a good source of water, but unfortunately, the city water is not always available. Sometimes there is no power for the pump, or it breaks, or who knows why else it doesn't run, but when it doesn't, they have to get water from the river. It appears that the river is the problem. They were having to get river water for a period of time because there was no city water and the epidemic started. There are no other options when there is no city water and they have to have water.

Ok, so what to do?

Well, in order to help solve a problem in another culture you have to listen. You have to listen to what will work for them in their daily lives or anything you try to implement will just not be used. Second you have to figure out how to implement a solution that will work for them. That is where we are.

We have had many, many ideas for clean water options (thank you!!!). We are trying to narrow down to options that will work for the orphanage and then for other areas of the city. The orphanage staff said yesterday that the large rain water collection systems do not work well for them. In the dry season...well, it's too dry...and then they have had problems with them breaking down and no one knowing how to fix it. They are hoping for something more easily reliable with very little maintenance as many of the caretakers and other help do not know how to fix those things or how to read instructions for maintenance.

Their recommendation is to have a city spigot water line ran near to the orphanage. The current spigot is quite far away and because of the distance, they cannot stock up on water by filling up extra large buckets when the water is running so they have stores when it is not. The distance makes it much too difficult for the staff to do. If a water line was closer, they could get larger buckets and keep a large back up to go days without city water being pumped. Then each of the buckets need to have point of use filters to ensure even the city water is being filtered.

Are there other more elegant ways to look at this? Yes...but we are thinking we should start with easy to use and readily acceptable clean water techniques and then move into other solutions down the road.

Some of the other issues at the orphanage include:
- The toilets are not good and with diseases such as dysentery capable of being transferred from fecal matter, we need to look at improving the toilets so they are not a source of transmission.
- Need more higher quality cleaning supplies to help keep water containers and any contaminated items clean.
- With so many sick children, the mattresses were ruined and had to be thrown out so the children are sleeping on plywood.
- There are so few toys and other developmental stimuli activities, that we hope to provide some of toys as well.
- Most of the surviving children were also sick, but received antibiotics in time and responded to them. Most of them were malnourished when they came into care and are now even weaker and unhealthy again. We would like to send multivitamins, iron supplements, and other health related items to help. Additionally, we want to have some antibiotics on hand in case another child gets ill. They said that in some cases, a child died within 24 hours of their first signs of illness. You cannot even get to the doctor and get medicine in that amount of time.

The orphanage is trying all they can to not to use river water and have been stocked up on cleaning supplies for now to help keep everything clean so the bacteria does not make its way back in.

These short-term measures will only last so long, so we need to get the longer-term options going. Two people will be flying to the orphanage departing from Kinshasa on November 2nd, so we need to get them filters and other supplies unavailable in that area of the country by then.

Next steps:

1. Raise funds to cover a new city water line being ran near the orphanage - waiting on cost estimate
2. Identify point-of-use filters that are VERY EASY to install and use that can be installed by someone that has never seen anything like it before.
3. Raise funds for other hygiene programs at the orphanage:
a. Buy and set up new toilets
b. Buy good cleaning supplies
c. Buy new mattresses
d. Buy new toys
e. Send in health items such as vitamins and back up antibiotics
4. Then we want to start looking at other longer-term options as well as helping other vulnerable people in the area

We welcome all the help that anyone is willing to give. Any organizations with resources on the ground or can be on the ground to help implement both shorter and longer-term solutions are needed. If you have messaged and we haven't responded, please message again - we are working through a number of great leads, but haven't been able to talk with everyone.

If you know of good point-of-use filters for buckets, please let us know. If there are other health solutions for the surviving, but malnourished children, please send that information too. If you can help raise funds, we very much need that too. All Blessings International will take donations to fund the items listed above. If you want to donate, call ABI at 270-684-2598.

Here are some pictures of the orphanage: