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Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, handwashing\u00a0remains among\u00a0the most difficult preventive measures\u00a0for millions of Sierra Leoneans\u00a0to follow. In fact, access to clean water is still a challenge for many crowded urban settlements\u00a0across\u00a0Sierra Leone, a small country in West Africa where an estimated\u00a02.9 million people live without clean and potable water<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n So, how do you wash your hands if you cannot access water?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite the COVID-19 outbreak in a country still\u00a0traumatized\u00a0by\u00a0some\u00a04,000 deaths caused by the Ebola virus, flood survivors living in camps often forsake\u00a0lockdown measures as they search for clean water for their households.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n To support these disaster-affected communities, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), in collaboration with\u00a0Sierra Leone\u2019s\u00a0Office of National Security (ONS), has constructed water facilities with the use of\u00a0Poly\u00a0Glu<\/a>, a Japanese water purification system.\u00a0<\/p>\n The water plants were installed in five communities, including the resettled community of Mile Six camp in\u00a0Koya\u00a0Chiefdom, which is located about 50 kilometers from the outskirts of Freetown. These solar-powered water facilities\u00a0\u2013\u00a0which were installed by IOM\u00a0\u2013\u00a0now are providing purified water to more than 1,000 residents. They are now also helping the resettled community and its environs defeat COVID-19.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we came to Mile Six after the devastating floods in Freetown in 2015, we experienced many challenges here, including access to clean drinking water,\u201d said Emma\u00a0Conteh, a resident of the displaced community.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The community used to fetch water from unsafe sources, which include swamps and unprotected ditches located some kilometers away from the camp. Thanks to the installation of a water facility and a purification system, community members now have enough water to drink and use for other purposes including\u00a0handwashing\u00a0for COVID-19 prevention.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cGetting clean water at Mile Six is as natural as breathing fresh air. And for a very long time now I have not seen cases of people, especially children affected by cholera and diarrhea, because of the availability of safe drinking water in the camp,\u201d Emma\u00a0Conteh\u00a0explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to\u00a0Jeneba\u00a0Kargbo, chair of the displaced families at Mile Six, the camp and host community are yet to register a single case of COVID-19. They continue to observe preventive measures and follow regulations of the public health emergency procedures urged by the Government.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSince COVID-19 came to the country, we have been encouraging people at the camp to effectively use water collected from the solar-powered taps to wash their hands, and practice other safe hygiene measures to protect themselves from the virus,\u201d\u00a0Kargbo\u00a0added. \u201cWe will continue our usual hygiene practices and encourage more people to follow the COVID-19 preventive measures, specifically to practice proper\u00a0handwashing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n She said that to make this happen, they need to distribute more hygiene kits like soap and inform every household about COVID-19 preventive guidelines.\u00a0<\/p>\n As of 7 July, Sierra Leone has registered 1,572 COVID-19 cases and 63 deaths. IOM Sierra Leone continues to work closely with the Emergency Operation Centre to deliver risk communication and social mobilization in crowded or informal settlements and border communities.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The water facilities were constructed through the project \u201cStrengthening\u00a0Disaster\u00a0Preparedness,\u00a0Response\u00a0and\u00a0Community\u00a0Resilience\u00a0in Sierra Leone\u201d funded by the Government of Japan.\u00a0<\/p>\n Distributed by APO Group on behalf of International Organization for Migration (IOM).<\/i> Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, handwashing\u00a0remains among\u00a0the most difficult preventive measures\u00a0for millions of Sierra Leoneans\u00a0to follow. In fact, access to clean water is still a challenge for many crowded urban settlements\u00a0across\u00a0Sierra Leone, a small country in West Africa where an estimated\u00a02.9 million people live without clean and potable water.\u00a0 So, how do you wash your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":50533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/thumb\/7eeb40756ae2dae\/200\/200\/fit","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[655],"tags":[258,256,8139,7103,32489,32926,9883,4345,4337,4090,6572,6486,257,9218,14971,6571,254,6722],"class_list":["post-50532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-algeria","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-algeria-news","tag-communities","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid19","tag-facilities","tag-fight","tag-international","tag-iom","tag-leone","tag-migration","tag-news","tag-organization","tag-resettled","tag-sierra","tag-south-africa-today","tag-water"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/thumb\/7eeb40756ae2dae\/200\/200\/fit","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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South Africa Today Africa \u2013 North Africa Algeria<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"