AfriWatSan

Dr Seynabou Cissé Faye, UCAD AfriWatSan Co-I, Hydrogeology, has been named Godmother of the Dakar 2019 Miss Mathematics and Miss Sciences edition. The competition that has been organized since 2011 by the Senegalese regional academic authorities, in the various regions of the country, is aimed, among others, at promoting excellence at school, encouraging girls to pursue education in sciences and excel in this subject.Dr Cissé Faye has been selected by her institution, the University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar (UCAD), Senegal, and the Faculty of Science, more specifically, in recognition of her professional qualifications in Science, her outstanding achievements in…

The DR 6000 UV VIS spectrophotometer is a common piece of equipment to all the institutions participating in the AfriWatSan project. In line with its capacity strengthening mandate, the Project found it  relevant to train its member technicians, at the same time and in the same location, on the use of this equipment the project has endowed its participating institutions with. Work done involved familiarization on the instrument hardware and software and training the technicians on the specific analyses they wanted to carry out on the UV/VIS.The aim was to enable them to carry the specific analyses requested by the…

Abdoulaye Pouye, UCAD PhD student, participated in the Pan-African soil challenge held in Accra from  26 to 30 November 2018 in Accra, Ghana. This participation enabled him to acquire knowledge on the modelling of water and solute transfers in soils and to present his research work. He also received precious advice from the organizers.    

Two AfriWatSan PhD students, Ms Jacintha Nayebare, from the University of Makerere (MUK), Uganda, and Mr. Mor Talla Diaw, from the University Cheikh Anta Diop (UCA) of Dakar, Senegal participated in the annual Water and Health Conference of the Water Institute at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, USA. The conference was held from 29th October to 01st November 2018. Ms Jacintha Nayebare did a poster presentation and Mr. Mor Talla Diaw delivered an oral presentation. The summary of their activities and photos are available here.

AfriWatSan team members (Dr. Seynabou Cisse Faye, Dr. Simeon Dulo, Japhet Kanoti, James Sorensen) participated in the 45th International Association of Hydrogeologists Annual Congress hosted by  Korean National Chapter of the International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH-KNC). Please find here a short description of their activities at the Congress and for Dr. Simeon Dulo’s presentation, click here.

As part of my master dissertation at the University College London, Institute for Global Health, I was honoured to participate in a workshop organised by one of the most innovative global consortium on Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) called AfriWatSan in the past week. The AfriWatSan project houses multi-disciplinary research experts from UCAD Senegal, University of Nairobi Kenya, Makerere University Uganda and University College London, The United Kingdom with financial support from The Royal Society and UK aid. The consortium’s objective is to “develop the scientific evidence to inform policies and practices sustaining low-cost, on-site water supplies and sanitation systems…

The AfriWatSan Senegal Observatory based at the University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar will host the 4th Annual AfriWatsan International Consortium Workshop to be held from 09th to 13th July 2018 in Saly, Senegal. The main goal of this workshop, which includes a full day meeting with stakeholders, is to give opportunity for members of the Consortium to share experiences, progress made, outputs achieved, and challenges experienced in the three Observatories and engage with local stakeholders. It will also include a visit of the monitoring sites in the Thiaroye aquifer.   More information to be provided.

Dr. Seynabou Cisse Faye (UCAD co-PI) participated in the 3rd International Conference on Integrated Environmental Management for Sustainable Development (ICIEM 2018) held in Sousse (Tunisia) from 02nd to 05th May 2018. A few photos of her making her presentation and for more information go to http://afriwatsan.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Cisse_faye-et-al.-Extended_abstract-_ICIEMB-9-March-2018.pdf

In April 2018, the AfriWatSan team in Dakar began construction of Urban Observatories in the Thiaroye shallow aquifer to assess the impact of the on-site sanitation systems on groundwater quality and human health. The construction of monitoring wells, a central feature of the Urban Observatories, provided an opportunity for additional training in drilling supervision   by AfriWatSan co-PIs, Professor Cheikh Gaye and Dr. Seynabou Cissé Faye to AfriWatSan PhD and MSc students (Mor Talla Diaw, Abdoulaye Pouye, Djim Diongue) that was started at last year’s AfriWatSan workshop in Kisumu.  Construction was completed in a timely manner and now enables high-frequency (hourly)…