Back in March 2006, two cousins from Essex, Laura and Karen, embarked upon a trip of a lifetime and travelled to Africa to live, work and teach in a remote northern Ghanaian village.

The school, situated at the centre of the village was a source of pride for all of the villagers and the children delighted in attending every day. However, after a few weeks of working at the school the girls realised that many of the children were often off sick. Worried about what was happening to the children, Karen and Laura enlisted the help of local teachers and paid a visit to the village to find out what was happening.

After visiting a few houses they found that both the children and their parents were infected with a parasite known as ‘Guinea Worm’, which the villagers caught from the local water source. Upon further investigation, the girls discovered that the villagers were also suffering from many other water-borne diseases and infections.

Desperate to help, Laura and Karen sought out medical experts and learnt how to treat the infections, pull the worms, and to educate the children and their parents in ways to avoid the parasites. But this wasn’t enough. Every day another child would fall sick.

So the girls made a promise to the children – that they would provide their village, and other villages like them, with clean and safe water for them to drink. As soon as they returned to the UK, Karen and Laura got to work on setting up a charity to raise money to build boreholes, rainwater tanks and wells for their children and others like them.

And so the Ghana Borehole Fund was born.

Ghana Borehole Fund needs your help to save these children from the terrible effects of water-borne diseases.

To find out how you can help, please click here

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