It was a carnival-like scene on Sunday as residents of Babaegbe community in Akinyele Local Government Area of Oyo State rolled out drums and their sleeves to celebrate their first-ever pipe-borne water source.
The community residents which had lived all their lives without a portable water source were full of thanks to Oak Rural Health Organisation (ORHO), which facilitated the drilling of the borehole.
Before ORHO came to the aid of this community, the residents relied solely on unclean sources of water like a stagnant body of water which gathers after rainfall and dirty wells where they stored rainwater during the rainy season for use in the dry season. These were not enough, according to Comfort Olawale, one of the residents who spoke to Nigerian Tribune shortly after the inauguration of the borehole.
She said, in the past, the residents trekked many kilometres to a nearby community to fetch water. Due to the long journey, they were “usually weak and wasted a lot of time that could have been utilised in economic activities.
“Sometimes when we drank the dirty water from the village, we vomited and fell sick,” she told Nigerian Tribune. “We had no water for our palm oil mills and other things at home. But now, we are so happy that we can easily fetch water from the borehole Oak Rural Health Organisation drilled for us. We can now drink clean water, cook and bathe with clean water and also have enough water for our palm oil mills.”
The Baale of the community, Ajiboye Abidogun, told Nigerian Tribune that the borehole drilled by Oak Rural Health Organisation is the first of its kind in the over 300 years history of the community. He expressed happiness and thanked ORHO and its partners for coming to their aid.
For Amos Ajisekola, the chairman of ORHO, scenes seen on Sunday at Babaegbe is one of the major reasons for setting up the non-governmental organisation. The smiles seen on the faces of the elderly men and women in the community resonate with the aim of the organisation, part of which is: to provide access to healthcare services, mitigate potential risks to healthy living in rural communities and engage in programs that consider the community members themselves as stakeholders in proffering solutions to their health needs so as to create a sustainable impact.
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