Residents of Louisiana Township, Montserrado County celebrate here, as they receive pipe borne water for the first time in several decades.
- Life in the township of Louisiana, about 15 kilometers from Monrovia, is unbearable, as residents face severe hardship, while schools, pipe-born water, hospitals, and other essential needs of the people are lacking.
Caldwell is a Township in Montserrado County, Liberia. It was one of the four townships established in the first wave of colonization (between 1822 and 1827). The 1839 Constitution, drafted by the American Colonization Society, lists it as one of the original settlements comprising the Commonwealth of Liberia.
The name comes from Elias B. Caldwell Elias and family, around 1816, who were Presbyterians in what became Caldwell, New Jersey.
The NEW DAWN visited the township over the weekend and observed that citizens are still feeling the scars of the 14 years of devastating civil war that took the lives of 250,00 people and devastated every fabric of the society.
Speaking in an interview with Journalists over the weekend concerning the challenges, 86-year-old Mrs. Edna Moore Woods said the lack of safe drinking water is a serious challenge for the community.
According to her, she paid 50 Liberian Dollars for a gallon of water, something she describes as crazy. She expressed appreciation and excitement to her son, Mr. Prince A. Woods, for restoring pipe-born water to the community.
"My son, I'm 86-years old. I was born and raised here. We got water here from President Williams R. Tolbert during the old time. When the water was brought, my mother constructed a hand pump that we used. After the war, all those things were damaged, and today we don't have any, so we go to the creek, river stream, and open well to fetch water for drinking; my children help me, but we are suffering."
One of the elders of the community, Mr. Emmanuel L.Q Yantee, said that since the end of the Liberian Civil War, they have been drinking untreated water from nearby creeks, rivers and uncovered wells, which sometimes caused illness and death.
He noted that people who are drinking safe water are those who can purchase mineral water sacks or bottled water, but on average, they are affected because most people can't afford to buy them; therefore, they use nearby solutions.
For her part, Rita D. Hines indicated that they have to send their children to nearby creeks, streams, and wells at night to get water for them, and sometimes they are attacked while en route by disadvantaged youth, who take all of their belongings and also kidnapped them, while unfortunately some experienced drowning.
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Also, Mr. Peter Paye explained that due to the untreated water that they consume, they are faced with illnesses ranging from diarrhea, fever, fatigue, gastroenteritis, and sometimes death.
They lamented that they had engaged government upon government and raised money on their own to address the situation but to no avail.
However, to address this challenge, a resident of the Caldwell Louisiana Township, New Hope Community, Montserrado County District #1, Mr. Prince A. Woods, with technical support from the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation at long last restored pipe-born water to the community.
Mr. Woods said that for the past six years of former President George M. Weah, they had engaged the management of Water and Sewer to connect the community, but this didn't materialize due to the high cost charged by the corporation.
He noted that when the new leadership assumed power, he visited the LWSC office and pleaded with them. They gave him a form to fill out and later told him that they would provide the technical expertise while he (Woods) took care of logistics and others.
"That's how they called me; they are in the community to connect us. The community residents came around, too, to help. I provided the logistics and other support in the amount of Two Thousand Five Hundred United States Dollars. We are doing this for our people, and we hope this will extend to other communities because this entire township doesn't have," Mr. Woods concluded.
