Concordia senior Alecious Togbah walks across a wooden pathway wide enough for a single person to cross at a time.
The bridge hangs precariously over a wetland filled with pungent, undrinkable water.
“When the tide rises, it brings in this water. And the smell is disgusting,” says Togbah.
When not in school in Moorhead, her home is Tweh Farm, a small community just north of Liberia’s capital, Monrovia.
Togbah has learned to deal with wading through the sometimes knee-deep water, and so have her neighbors. The real issue is that the water is unsafe to drink, and the closest well with fresh water is miles away.
Even then, the water that many residents rely on has a reddish hue that stains buckets and must be filtered through sand or boiled before it is fit for consumption.
“We struggle a lot when it comes to access to clean water,” says Togbah.
After arriving at Concordia her first year, Togbah learned about a possible solution: Projects for Peace.
According to their website, Projects for Peace is an initiative that awards money to “student leaders who are developing innovative, community-centered, and scalable responses to the world’s most pressing issues.”
Every year, around 125 students are awarded $10,000 each to complete their proposed project addressing a humanitarian issue.
While it was too late to apply during her first year, Togbah applied during her second year, but her application was not selected for funding.
“I went home in December, looked at the community, analyzed what needed to be done, and how I could solve the problem.” says Togbah.
Her plan involved connecting Tweh Farm to a water pipeline carrying clean water, as well as installing two water “kiosks” with faucets so residents could access the water without a long walk.
During her third year at Concordia, she reapplied, and this time was granted funding to build her pipeline and the water kiosks in her town.
“This was a once in a lifetime opportunity,” says Togbah.
She returned home for the summer and encountered her first problem.
She struggled to access the money she had been awarded with. The money, which was given to her on a payment card, wasn’t accepted by Liberian banks.
“I had to go to eight different banks to try to access the money,” says Togbah.
She had to contact the school and get the funding sent directly to her debit card. Once the issue was resolved, she began working with the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation.
They needed to hand dig a trench that would house piping, as well as purchase and install pipes along the way, connecting the community to the national waterline.
“I had to negotiate with them for a lot of things, and some of the things I even had to tell them, if you can’t lower the price, I’m gonna buy it myself,” says Togbah.
After about a month, the piping was put into place and the two water kiosks were constructed.
Each kiosk has eight faucets, making 16 in total that are available to residents of Tweh Farm.
The water at the kiosks is also offered at a much cheaper rate than elsewhere, making it an inexpensive, convenient and safer location for water.
Crowds gathered when the kiosks were finally available, many with red-colored buckets, stained from years of buildup from the well water.
Togbah helped distribute clean, new buckets that lacked the reddish stains.
“It was a very hectic but rewarding day,” says Togbah.
Looking forward to new Projects for Peace, Concordia has approximately 8 students who have stepped forward with ideas, according to Lisa Twomey, director of community engagement.
One or two of these projects could be awarded funding, depending on the strength of their proposal.
A small committee, headed by Twomey, will look over the applications, select two, and pass those on to Projects for Peace who she says will select at least one for funding.
“Every project I’ve heard so far has been really good,” says Twomey.
