THE long struggle of a deprived Nigerian community to gain access to clean drinking water reached a happy conclusion, and it was all thanks to a Herefordshire based water sanitation and hygiene (WASH) charity known as Hope Spring. This organization helped the 200 people residing in the community to rehabilitate a failed borehole project. Due to the efforts of Hope Spring, the borehole now provides 7,500 litres of water a day to the people of the community.

The Kongbari community of Ilorin, Kwara State in western Nigeria have tried for more than six years to save up enough money for the construction of a borehole that will provide a water supply all year round to the households. This met with no success. In a community where most of the adults earn less than $1.25 per day, saving up enough money to construct a borehole was next to impossible.

Hope Spring became aware of the plight of the Kongbari community, when one of the charity's trustees, Temi Odurinde of Kingsthorne, Herefordshire, attended a water, sanitation and hygiene conference at the University of Ilorin in 2015.

Mr Odurinde was quoted as saying "I was impressed by the determination and resilience of the community. Women and children get up at the crack of dawn and walk long distances to collect water for the household."

The whole community was putting a lot of effort into trying to get a functional borehole built. Given how poor the community was along with the high inflation present in the Nigerian economy; the reality was that they will never be able to save up enough to build the much needed borehole.

The Hope Spring water project for this community, which was completed in April, brought clean water closer to the village. The need for long daily walks to collect water by the residents is now a thing of the past. Every household in the community is less than ten minutes' walk from this public water project that Hope Spring helped to establish.

In a letter thanking Hope Spring and the people of Herefordshire for their donation and kindness, the chief of the Kongbari community stated that a huge burden had been lifted from the shoulders of his village residents. He added that children will now be able to get to school on time and attend classes regularly because the need to trek long distances and queue for untold lengths of time to fetch water has now been removed from their daily chores.

Hope Spring, a relatively new charity, was founded in 2015. It received a registered charity status by the charity commission in early 2016.