When she returned to her home country, 20 years after running from the civil war that destroyed Liberia, the founder and president of FACE Africa, an organization that promotes the development of the water and sanitation infrastructures in rural areas of the Sub-Saharan Africa, embraced this cause.  

“I am passionate about education and thought that educating children would be a way of helping them having a future”, said on an interview to Lusa, the water activist that was in Lisbon last week to participate on the 1st Edition of the EurAfrican Forum.  

But the barriers to education were more profound than it looked at first sight. And Saran understood that going to school also depended on the access to clean water: children missed classes because they got sick with that lack of quality of water they drank, because schools didn’t have the adequate installations, mainly when talking about girls on the puberty age, or because the girls had to walk long distances to fetch water for their families.

“The transportation of water is a task almost exclusively feminine in Africa. Women and girls spend 40 million hours every year, walking long distances to fetch water. That’s why many girls don’t go to school. They are occupied with this and other domestic tasks and they can’t be productive”, noted.  

Saran repeats the number: 40 million hours. As much as the French workers send per year, according to the United Nations, that made this calculation to demonstrate how this task affects the life of many African women.

“Water is related to the other areas, health, productivity, economic development, education or gender equality”. This is a feminine problem, so, when we solve a water problem, we are also giving more power to women”, added.

Water can be the, Saran believes, the catalyst for these changes: “When we install a water system on a village, water becomes closer. It’s more free time that women and girls have available to go to school, to dedicate to agriculture and to trade or other productive activities”.

O FACE Africa was born in 2008, with na educationl fund, but rapidly evolved to WASH programs (Water, Sanitation and Higiene), counting today with more 50 communitiy that benefit 25.000 people.

On Liberia, that “went through a civil war that destroyed the whole social, infrastructure, energy, streets, health care fabrics”, FACE Africa is one of the organizations of civil society that searches to help solving multiple challenges that the Government “can’t solve”, said the responsible of the organization.

FACE Africa works independently and faces the local communities as the main partner.

“We have to ensure that they are part of the process: we teach to build the system and how to maintain it, so when it is ready they can feel has theirs and they can know how to make a reparation, if it is necessary”, he added.

On the bottom of this is a simple concept: to build infrastructures of capture and low-cost water treatment and low sophisticated technology so that their communities can be responsible for their building and maintenance.    

For now, FACE Africa is acting only in Liberia and Nigeria, but the goal is to reach all Africa, replicating the model in other countries, including the PALOP.

Saran refered that they receive every kind of requests on their online portal, and admited that the limited resources don’t allow all answer all the solicitations immediatly.

“It is necessary to raise funds and to ensure support. It is hard to choose who we are going to help first, focusing generally on small communities and give priority to the projects according with the partnerships that we can create on local level”, explained.

By Lusa, July 2018

The former president of the European Commission Durão Barroso stated today that Europe has the “humanitarian obligation” of receiving refugees and should have its doors “open, but not wide open”.

“We have to avoid demagogy. Europe should have the doors open, but not wide open”, said Durão Barroso, reinforcing that the “uncontrollable movement of immigrants” is generating “very concerning” xenophobic movements in many countries.

The also former-prime-minister of Portugal, that spoke aside the from the 1st EurAfrican Forum that takes place today in Cascais, highlighted that the question must be managed “with balance”, considering that the solution is to dialogue with the African countries, but also to share the responsibilities between Europeans.  

“We have to reach to an agreement between us, dividing the responsibility and making an effective control, but also humanitarian of our borders”, noted.

Durão Barroso said that it is necessary to give more support to the development of the African countries. “Don’t have illusions. It is impossible to fully control the migration flows, the long-term solution is on the development of Africa”, stated the formerly European responsible, adding that it is “a humanitarian obligation to receive these people”. Questioned about the decision related to the migration policies of the last European council, Durão Barroso stated that he doesn’t know the details of these proposals and considered that that was “a necessary step, but more is needed”.

The European Union leaders reached on the morning of June 29 to an agreement for the creation about regional landing platforms of migrants and of controlled centers on the member-states as well as the reinforce of the control of the external borders.

The former president of the European Commission and non-executive president of Goldman Sachs is the Chairman of the EurAfrican forum, an event organized by the Portuguese Diaspora Council, that pretends to bring closer Africa and Europe and strengthen the confidence between both continents.

By Lusa, July 2018

The minister of the External Relations of Angola, Manuel Domingos Augusto, stated today that Africa must cease looking at Europe as the “eternal guilty of its problems” and that both continents should evolve to mutual beneficial coalitions.

“The approach between Europe and Africa is unavoidable. Europe is the main economic partner of Africa and Africa is the depositary of big raw materials, some of them fundamental to the European industry, that’s why, there is an interdependency relationship”, said the head of the Angolan diplomacy, that today participated on the 1st EurAfrican Forum.

Manuel Augusto appealed to both continents to follow-up the “movement of the time” and to give up “paradigms that are already out-of-date” and “psychological taboos” that are harmful for both. Just like the paternalism of Europe with Africa still occurs, “sometimes, involuntarily”, Africa also “should stop look at Europe as the eternal guilty of its problems and the only source to the resolution of their problems.

When asked about the creation of free trade areas in Africa, the minister agreed that it is necessary to start the creation of “specific mechanisms”, because “it is not conceivable that the banana produced in Benin goes to Europe to be bought by Angola”. The “partnership with Europe” is important to solve problems such as the lack of communication routes or a developed industry and should be faced in a positive way.   “It is necessary to consolidate the notion that the fact that Angola and other countries want factories to transform their products doesn’t mean less business for the European countries. In fact, we are inviting the European countries to come to a market almost virgin to invest and to build the factories”, highlighted.

Manuel Domingos congratulated with the choice of Portugal to receive the first edition of the event organized by the Portuguese Diaspora Council and restated that the relationship between Portugal and Angola are “really good”. About the date of the visit of prime-minister António Costa to Luanda, he confirmed that it won’t be after September, adding that “it will be communicated of the due time and through the due channels.”

By Lusa, July 2018