By Elbie Sebleh
MONROVIA: Life in the township of Louisiana, Caldwell, some 15 kilometers from Monrovia, seems to be unbearable as residents of the area are facing severe hardship while schools, pipe-born water, hospitals and other essential needs are lacking.
Caldwell is a Township located in Montserrado County, Liberia. Caldwell was one of the four townships established in the first wave of colonization (between 1822 and 1827).
It is listed as one of the original settlements comprising the Commonwealth of Liberia in the 1839 Constitution, which was drafted by the American Colonization Society.
The name comes from Elias B. Caldwell Elias and family, about 1816, Presbyterians in what became Caldwell, New Jersey.
Over the weekend, our reporter who visited the township observed that the citizens are still feeling the scars of the country’s civil conflict that claimed the lives of thousands of Liberians and devastated the fabric of the country.
Speaking in an interview with Journalists over the weekend concerning the challenges, 86-years old Mrs. Edna Moore Woods said that the issues of safe drinking water is a serious challenge to the community.
According to her, she pays L$50 for a gallon of water. She described the acute shortage of safe drinking water in the area as a crisis.
However, she lauded 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. During the old time, we got water here through President Williams R. Tolbert (late). When the water was brought, my mother constructed a handpump that we used. During the war, all those things were damaged, and today we don’t have any and so, we go to the creek, river streams and open well to fetch water. We are suffering.
Speaking in an interview with one of the elders, Mr. Emmanuel L.Q Yantee, a resident of the Community said that since the end of the Liberian 14-year civil crisis, they have been drinking untreated water from the nearby creeks, rivers, streams and open wells which sometimes caused illnesses and death.
He noted that people who are drinking safe water are those who are able to purchase mineral water sacks, either plastic or bottle, but on the average, they are affected because most can’t afford to buy water.
For her part, Rita D. Hines indicated that they have to send their children to the nearby creeks, streams, rivers and open wells at night to get water. Sometimes they are attacked while in route by disadvantaged youth who take all of their belongings.
Also, Mr. Peter Paye explained that due to the untreated water that they drink, they are faced with illnesses ranging from diarrhea, fever, fatigue, gastroenteritis. They lamented that they have engaged government upon government and raised money on their own as struggling community dwellers to resolve the water crisis but to no avail.
However, in an effort to address this challenge, a resident of the Caldwell Louisiana Township, New Hope Community, Montserrado County district #1, Mr. Prince A. Woods, with technical manpower support from the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation, restored pipe-born water for the community.
Speaking in an interview with Journalists over the weekend, Mr. Woods said that for the past six years of former President George M. Weah, they have engaged the management of Water and Sewer to have the community connected but didn’t materialize due to the high cost charged by the corporation.
He noted that, when the new leadership came, he visited LWSC office and pleaded with them, and they gave him a form to fill and later told him that they will provide the technical manpower while he takes care of the logistics and others.
” That how they call me that 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 it’s our hope that this will extend to the other community because this entire township doesn’t have,” Mr. Woods concluded.
