Project title: mitigation of the impacts of leachates from dumpsites on the groundwater quality of the Agu-Awka community and the environs.

This project was borne out of my desire to proffer solutions to a prevalent but disturbing issue of groundwater contamination in the Agu-Awka community and the environs in Anambra state, east of Nigeria.
Before and during this project, I live within the study area and have suffered and noticed the health implications of contaminated water (especially, groundwater) in the study area. I observed that the common diseases in the study area have been in one way or another, associated with waterborne diseases, such as cholera, dysentery, diarrhea, etc. This issue became problematic when children started to be victims of this problem.
To help proffer solutions to mitigate the effects of this problem, I carried out hydrogeochemical analyses on both surface and groundwater in the study area to know the contribution of the leachates from distributed dumpsites in the groundwater system. However, the result proved that the groundwater in the area has been significantly compromised by heavy metal leachates from these distributed dumpsites in the study area. Fortunately, this result was a piece of concrete evidence for the community sensitization on the need for water treatment before use.
But, unfortunately, the communities concerned do not have communal water treatment plants that could have been the best place to render the results of my analyses for future water treatment. Again, due to the COVID-19 lockdown, there was no means to gather the inhabitants of these communities to educate them on the need for water treatment, with my result as a concrete base. These were my major objectives of embarking on this project. But, thanks to social media and the internet for at least, making my project successful.
During the project, I visited homes, streets, and schools to carry out the sensitization process of educating the locals of the study area on the importance of water treatment before use. Towards the end of the semester, I and my fellow MCN campus fellows visited Nnamdi Azikiwe University High School, Awka, Nigeria, where we educated and encouraged both teachers and students on the importance of water treatment before use with my result as concrete evidence to the compromised water system.
Due to the pandemic, my project educated and encouraged the residents of my study area partly physically and majorly online. The online process involved the use of google Forms to interact with residents and then, pass across the objectives of the project while the physical process involved house-to-house, sensitization, street, and visiting a high school in the study area. In all, a large number of people were impacted (although less than as initially planned).