Providing safe and clean water to the last mile comes with many challenges that sometimes make us just want to close shop and look elsewhere for better prospects and more financial rewards. But the emotional reward is immeasurable and keeps any social entrepreneur on course.
Last week I had a chance to visit a few clients in our “Kutibu Ni Gharama, Zuia” program. I was in the company of Area Ambassador, District Ambassador and National Ambassador. We were making door to door follow up so as to get real time feedback. I surely love doing this. Talking to the people, sharing and listening to their stories make it worth the time. On this day we were to meet 13 clients in 2 villages. The response was quite good and encouraging. But the highlight was on client number 5 and client number 8.
Client number 5 had purchased the filter through sheer determination. Her first contact with our water filter was when she visited her sister in another region and found her using our filter. According to her, during this period of her visit, her constant cold and sore throat got cleared but reoccurred when she came back to her home. So when she heard of the availability of the water filters in her locality, she contacted the local ambassador who had the filter delivered to her on condition that she tests it for two days. Her main motive was to confirm if the filtered water had a connection with her throat condition. And yes the two days delivered positive results. She decided to purchase the filter but the husband would not hear of it. He could not understand why she was wasting family money on mere two buckets to which she stood her ground and practically forced her husband to purchase the water filter, asserting that only her could understand and explain the changes she experienced in her body on drinking filtered water.
Client number 8 is a groundnut vendor in the local market. Her close neighbor friend had purchased a water filter a few months ago and had been kind enough to allow her to get a bucket of filtered water every two days. The health impact on this client’s family made her want to purchase and own her filter. So determined was she that she got money from her table banking group just to get her water filter. Other group members could not understand why she was doing this to which she responded that only she knows the changes she had seen in the health of her family members when using filtered water.
Our mission statement is “Partnering To Positively Impact Humanity”. Hearing our clients’ state with passion that “only I understand what this water filter has done to me” clearly affirms to us that Japmor is still on course with her mission statement hence giving us a reason to want to continue despite the challenges.
~~~~ARR~~~ Journal~009
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