By Mustapha Jarju
The government has been called to help bring infrastructural development to Sare Bigi village in the West Coast Region, as residents complained about challenges faced by the community.
Biran Bah, a resident of the village, said: “we have never gotten support from the government. There is no well here, no road and even a school is a problem and we should have a school.”
“Water is not sufficient in my village, the village does have government support but it all came through Jambur village, when there is support, Haruna will call me to write to him the list of the household in my community,” he added.
“The only hand pump, the community is having now is a support from the Child Fund office in Jambanjelly, at times the community use to gather fund to dig a well which didn’t last long, as some individuals have well in their homes and some have boreholes also help the village with the issue of water,” said Biran.
“When a woman is in labor it is always a problem as the village is almost two kilometers away from the Brikama-Jambanjelly Highway. We used to hire taxi drivers from Brikama to rescue our sick people or hire motorbike from Jambanjelly to take the sick people to either Brikama health Centre or Jambanjelly clinic,” he said.
Isatou Bah, also a resident, said: “the difficulty of her village is that women are suffering more because every major challenge in the village is faced by the women as there is no water in the village, no road, and children’s education is also a problem. From the village to the school is far and the school children used to walk from their home to school and they used to be late at times.”
“Some of the students go all the way to Brikama for schooling and their parents are not financially strong, if some of these students don’t have lift from private drivers, they use to walk six kilometers to get to their schools in Brikama and they don’t have sponsors.
“The government is not looking at us, when it is election time they use to come here and campaign and we use to vote but there is nothing we are benefitting from. Every development in this village is brought by philanthropists, “she added.