One horrible thing that could occur during the project is for something to go wrong and for the Clean Water For Senegal group to be caught off guard. This is why it is important to plan for as many plausible disasters that can be thought of before they happen. This is done so that we know how to prevent them from happening and if they do happen; then how to fix them.
When starting a project something that can go horribly wrong is that the planning wasn’t strong enough or detailed enough to work. This can happen if the project leaders didn’t abide by the deadlines and have not completed tasks to the expected standard. One way to prevent this is to publish the deadlines online with countdowns to add pressure to complete them. This makes it more likely to complete the tasks to the expected standard because the public audience is viewing everything done over the Internet.
Another problem that could happen is that the money isn’t going to be raised to meet the needed 15,500 Lei by the 1st of April 2012. To make sure that this happens starting next school year each month the amount of money raised will be posted on the homepage of the Blog. This will allow the public to know how the project is coming along and will hopefully make them more interested in donating. On the 1st of February of 2012 the money will be checked to see if it is likely to reach the total amount needed by the 1st of April and if not a big fundraising event will be hosted. If this happens it will all be posted on the homepage of the Blog.
Following the plausibility of not raising enough money another problem that could occur is that the supplies are not transported in time to be in Bofel, Senegal at the time of construction. To prevent this from happening we will make sure to pay for the supplies three months before the planned construction dates and to get them transported to Bofel two months before the actual date of construction. They will be kept at the police station in Bofel with payments of $20 a week to keep them safe from being stolen or vandalized. When we come in July to build we will get to supplies from the police station. We chose July of 2012 to construct because it gives plenty of time to raise the money and to get the supplies ordered. Not only does it work with our timeline but it also is during the winter in Senegal and makes it easier for building since we wont be working in severe heat.
Raising the right amount of money and getting the supplies to Bofel in time are the least of our worries. A major problem that we have to be careful to not encounter is to build the well and leave only to be contacted later on that something happened to it and the locals cannot fix the problem. To prevent this the Clean Water For Senegal group is very focused on making the local people of Bofel feel pride for their new water pump. To do this we will bring paints to the town for them to paint the cement foundation with their beautiful painting styles and also hire local workers to help out with the construction. This will make them feel like they built this well for themselves and will hopefully boost the pride of the village and make them protective of their new clean water source. This will help prevent vandalism of the pump.
To help prevent against the possibility of the pump having a problem, which the villagers cannot fix once we are gone we need to educate them on the pump system. We will do this by having the skilled workers explain to the villagers how the pump works and then train them to fix the pump in case of any minor mishaps. Due to language barriers since they speak French in Senegal we will have to employ a worker that speaks both French and English.
Hopefully by planning out these several disaster scenarios we will be able to prevent them from happening. Even if the do happen now we are much more prepared to deal with them swiftly and efficiently.
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| This photograph was taken from Trekearth.com and was photographed by Pascal Podevin in 2000-09-00 in Saly, Senegal. |
