On Jan 27 2012 Dennis Broderick recorded the following in Project Journal:
It was probably sometime in the 2nd or 3rd quarters of 2010 that Elder and Sister Goff began working on a water project for Cape Verde. What they settled on was a project to connect homes of lower income families, such as the one above, to the city water grid. These families did not have the means to pay approximately $200 to bring a water line into their house and pay a plumber to install basic plumbing inside the house ending a single faucet.
Elder Goff entered the project into the Church Humanitarian Services computer systerm, names ChAS, in November 2010 and had the project approved by the European Area Welfare office and the Church later that month.
From that point it has been a long road to where we now have a formal contract between the Church and the City of Mindelo and construction work can begin. There are a number of reason why it has taken so long, not the least of which has been a newbee missionary couple trying to figure out how to make it happen.
We finally fit the pieces together, gathered the right people, invited the media, and had an event.
On the day of the event, I tried to have a message ready to share. They always invite the major parties to share a message. We met with Sandra Neves two days before to write out a press release. I had a printout of the release and had thought of a couple of other things I wanted to include.
When everyone was present, the microphones were sitting in front of me and the camera was rolling, I abandoned everything and shot from the hip. I didn't want to sit and read from a prepared script. Vanda looked a little nervous since this was sort of her event set up to showcase the city's project to help the poor. I just kept going, using the best portuguese I could conjur up on the spot. I guess it turned out OK, but certainly not polished.
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| Here is the LDS support crew (from left to right): Sandra Neves, a newly called Public Affairs Rep for Mindelo and our Hygiene Trainer Luis Alves, Public Affairs Rep from Praia (now moving to Portugal) Elton Sequeira, our project Sit Monitor, member of our young single adult group and newly called branch president Elder and Sister Broderick Vanda Tienne from the City, a key to success of this project |
Janet and I are greatly indebted to the Goffs for all they did to create and define the project, to Vanda Tienne of the City who has helped guide us down the path to the point we reached this week, to the Church's legal staff in Frankfurt for creating the contract and patiently interpreting our project requirements, and to all you for supporting us in the process. We also appreciated having our LDS support staff. We have already worked closely with Sandra on our plan to provide water usage and improved hygiene instruction for the families that are selected for the project.
We had two contracts to sign with three copies each and over 20 page per copy. The signatures were not bad, but initialing each page took significant time (that's 2 X 3 X 20+ pages). I was not aware, until the day of the event, what all would be included.
The event was well covered by the local TV, radio, and print media. If you are interested in seeing the TV report of the event, aired in their nightly journal that night, follow this link: http://www.rtc.cv/index.php?paginas=45&id_cod=15628&data=2012-01-27
In the end, the real beneficiaries will be good people of São Vicente, like the blind man above, who live humbly without water piped to their homes. Now they will have that basic service available providing water at a lower price, without having to carry it in buckets and bottles to their home.
Easier access to water encourages better health through improved sanitation and personal hygiene. It frees them from the drugery of carrying water or the cost of paying for or depending on others to carry it for them. The greater freedom will translate to an improved quality of life for all around them and more time to attend to other of life's opportunities.
As the mayor said, with this project we have the opportunity of moving closer to the goal of having a faucet with running water in each household.
This was a milestone event for this project and signals that actual construction work under the project will begin.
A separate agreement between the City and Electra, the water utility, will be signed at a later time. The President of Electra, who will sign the document, works in Praia and was unable to participate today. We are coordinating with Electra's Mindelo office to complete that signing within the next two weeks.