Water for South Sudan supports the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals with a focus on Goal #6 to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
Water Wells
Clean water changes lives, helping to strengthen families and communities.
Where safe, clean water flows, villages have more opportunities to prosper.
Based in Wau, Water for South Sudan's operations teams work in remote villages in the Bahr el Ghazal region of South Sudan. These communities have minimal access to clean water and often can only access contaminated water that will lead to individual and community health risks.
Great changes begin immediately at the community level with the availability of daily access to clean water. WFSS works with local governments and community leaders to determine the optimal placement of wells. The goal is to create sustainable systems, incorporating well maintenance and training as part of the installation of a well.
Drilling Facts
WFSS has drilled more than 600 wells since 2005.
Teams work during the dry season—December to May.
Each new water well takes three to seven days to complete.
One well pumps approximately 1,800 gallons (6,814 liters) per day.
One to two people in each village are trained on simple well maintenance.
Communities are connected to local supply chains for spare parts.
Each well serves an average of 750 people and is shared with everyone.
Annual goals:
Drill 40 new wells by the end of each drilling season.
Rehabilitate 50 older wells by the end of each drilling season.
Provide hygiene education in each village served.
Well Rehabilitation
WFSS strives for sustainability in all we do. When a well breaks, people lose access to a freshwater source.
Launched its rehabilitation team in 2017 to repair older wells.
The rehab team returns to older wells to replace broken parts and upgrade the cement platforms around the wells.
The cement platform and animal watering trough are repaired using a more robust design standard to ensure many more years of use.
Because broken wells in Africa are a big problem, field teams also respond to community requests to repair wells drilled by other organizations.
Handmade Well Fencing
Plain as it may seem, fencing like that seen here is critical to keeping wells up and running. Without fencing, animals can trample on the cement and damage the platform, jeopardizing the well, all the donations and work that supported it, and the people that drink from it to survive.
At Water for South Sudan, sustainability is critical to our mission. We empower communities with the tools they need to keep wells working and clean water flowing by encouraging the construction of well fencing and educating communities on simple ways to maintain their well long after WFSS has left their village.
