Water is one of the most wasted resources in the world as a whole. Liberia has six major rivers, two lakes, and a heavy rainfall running from April to October each year.  Yet, people all over the country struggle to find clean drinking water.

A recent study put out by Afrobarometer, a non-partisan research institute measuring social indicators across Africa, reveals that across the country, only 50 per cent of people report that they never have enough water.  Equally worrisome is Afrobarometer’s report that only 8 per cent always have enough. For a country so abundant in water, that so many people reporting that they lack the right to clean water should be of grave concern.

Water, this gift of God, is very important to all human around the world, with many governments and non governmental organizations spending millions of dollars annually to provide safe drinking water. Some of these funds are said to be spent in Africa – with Liberia being no exception – to provide safe drinking water for people who cannot find it.

Lack of safe drinking water in some places causes illnesses, that sometimes leads to death among poor people who can not access clean water, even though it is in abundant in Liberia.

The lack of safe drinking water is not only a problem in the hinterland of Liberia, but it is also a problem that needs to be address in the nation’s capital, Monrovia and its suburbs. The gravity of this problem is real:  steps needs to be taken to address the situation.

This is exactly the issue in Flahn Town,  along Somalia Drive, where over five thousand people probably are affected every day in Liberia by lack of access to safe water. Like many places elsewhere in Liberia, most have limited knowledge of prevention of illness, and there does not seem to be a possible solution to the problem.

The people of Flahn Town lack safe drinking water. Community members buy up 25 gallons of water a day from water sellers in the community – a strain on the low amounts of money in the community.

Water buying is not the only problem in the community; residents developed methods just to have safe drinking water to keep up their family.

“We wash the beach sand and placed it into a rice bag, hang it on a stick,” Jestina Kromah a resident of the community explained. “We then fetch the dirty water from the open well and dump it into the bag of sand for about 10-15 minutes to have it filtered.”

“We do this every day of the week, without this process, we can not have clean water to wash, take bath and cook our foods, our children sometimes drink the water only because they can not fine a saver one,”

Kromah said that her family spends a combined 6 – 7 hours collecting the water that they need for their daily living.

She added that to access water for drinking, they send their children access the street 15-20 minutes walk away from the community. Our children are being risked and no one in the country cares to address this issue, Jestina continues.

“The problem of water in this community is a very big, the water from the wells around here is not clean, it is not good for human consumption,” explained Lucky Adogbo, standing in the doorway of the small store he runs. “We filter the dirty water and use it to wash, take bath and cook. We purchase drinking water from water sellers on a daily basis. Water from hand pump is also the same as the wells, no one has come to test the water to find a solution.”

“We have the right to clean water, since our right can not be given, we just have to accept what is being given,” he added.

Entering deeper into Flahn Town, the hanging bags of sand kept appearing in nearly every yard and the people kept expressing the same problem about water: they complained of running stomach and itches whenever they the drink or use the water for shower.

“We put water in the bag to filter it, because it is very dirty, we use it to take bath and wash clothes. The water sometime itch my skin and cause running stomach in this community,” Beatrice Togba, an elderly woman explained.

What makes matter worse for the people of Flahn Town, the newly constructed hand pump can not even be use for drinking. The water is brown and appeared rusty, but it is sometime consumed by little children only due to the lack of a clean and a safe water, and a lack of education about water purity.

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The interesting part of this investigation came minutes after the interview with Beatrice Togba, when two men came in with a giant size wheel barrel full with gallons of water for sale. They explained exactly why they were during such business in Flahn Town.

“We are water seller; we do this every day to support our families, said Ballah Gayflor of the work done by he and his business partner. I bring in 42 of these five-gallon containers into this community and we do this two to three times daily for almost a year plus now.”

We get this water from the Liberia Water Sewage line around the Jamaica Road Bridge and roll it to this community in wheel barrel for about 45 minutes to an hour. Each gallon is sold for ten dollars and everyone buys from us,” Gayflor, noted, adding that he can earn up to one thousand dollars every day.

The presence of outsides in Flahn Town attracted lot of attention with many people asking questions whether we were from some NGO  that is going build hand pump in the area; we told them they we are journalists.

Kids on their way home from school stop to tell us what they knew about water problem in the community.

‘Water business is very hard in this community; the water is dirty and can   run our stomach when we drink it. Our parents told us not to drink the water from the hand pump but when no water we can drink it.’

Madam Victory Jlopleh is the Chairlady for the women in Flahn Town and lives next to the only hand pump in the town, she had these words to say.

“Since 1991 we came in this community there has been serious problems of water here. We walk long distances in search for clean drinking water; we go across the water to Darque Town to get clean water and we have being doing this for a long period of time. The people build us a hand pump but the water is brown, sometime we boiled it before we use it. We are calling on the government to come to our aid,” she pleaded

‘Under pillar IV of the government Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS), the government intends to increase access to safe drinking water (from 25 to 50 percent by 2011 including 45 percent of the rural people population and ensure the sustainability of 90 percent of water and sanitation facilities in the country.)

As reflected in the PRS, clean and safe water is a resource that needs to be accessible to everyone.  Looking at the situation in Flahn Town brings into question whether or not this right is being addressed for Liberians.