Jacana

October, 2017

Hello subscriber subscriber, 

The small boy wears a dirty brown t-shirt with the text: ‘Stop staring at me’. He looks angry and I can’t stop looking at him. His father got a partly sponsored rope pump from Jacana on his farm. 

Boy in brown t-shirt

We are on working visit. Together with Rik we go to inspect the pumps who are installed by the trained entrepreneurs. We are friends from Rik and Dinie. We know them from Ghana where we both worked and lived. Since that time we visit them regularly in Africa.

Today the pump monitoring, this means that Rik thoroughly inspects and tests the pump. When the pump qualifies it gets a label, a real Jacana quality label. The label is attached to the pump by a pop rivet. On the label, Rik punches the phone number of the entrepreneur who has installed the pump. If something is wrong or if there are any questions then the farmer can approach the right person to repair the pump.

Some questions must also be answered. How deep have you drilled to find water? How did the drilling process proceed? Easy questions for the farmers.

How big is your land? This question is difficult to answer. They make a vague gesture: from that tree to that tree there far away and then to somewhere over there, again a vague gesture.

Rik carefully looks at the vaguely designated piece of land and enters something in his phone. Everything is stored in the phone that is connected to the Internet, so that the pump (provided with number) can be followed by anyone on www.jacana.help/mwater.

The highlight of the visit is when Rik shakes the farmer’s hand and asks the farmer to pump water and makes a picture of the farmer, shining of pride, with the water pumping pump

 And this happens three times.Three shining farmers, three beautiful rope pumps and therefore three Jacana quality labels.

Not everything went smoothly; the pump for the deaf farmer Joshua is just too late installed. Joshua could not pay the money for the pump on time. He already planted tomatoes. Jacana has met him and started drilling and installed the pump, but unfortunately, a week late. The tomato plants did not survive. The next harvest will, red shining, find its way to the market thanks to the pump.

At the last farmer it is crowded around the pump, many children including the boy in the brown t-shirt. The man therefore has 3 women and lacks 3 teeth (probably there is no connection). He laughs exuberant. His land looks beautiful. A fresh bed on which he grows paprika plants is the visible result of where the water goes. His pump also provides several families in the village of water, hence the many children who want to be there.

Rik shook the farmer’s hand, the picture was made. We can go home. The children are also leaving.

The brown t-shirt turns around.  On his back "Stop following me".

 

 

 

  

Thanks to Marjon Bakker who wrote a wonderful follow-up to the September newsletter. 

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Leo Bijl Foundation

Jacana received a donationf from Leo Bijl Foundation  for the business training of more small scale entrepreneurs from the Show case area. 

We thank Leo Bijl Foundation for the donation.

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