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Water
Everyone deserves clean water…
($25 … the average cost to give a person clean water for life - think of that the next time you buy a case of bottled water!)
Clean water is the basic amenity that everyone deserves to have, it is essential to a healthy existence. In Sumba the ancient hilltop villages are far from the water sources in the valleys below. The women and children must walk miles to fetch just one bucket of water. Our surveys of the villages, schools and clinics found that 90% do not have a water source within a reasonable distance (less than a half mile). As a result the hygiene conditions are appalling and an ideal breeding ground for disease.
For example, lack of water and toilet facilities at a school means that each day over 250 children must go to the bushes when nature calls, afterwards there is nowhere to wash their hands. Imagine clinics were the nurse or midwife has only a bucket of dirty spring water to use for cleaning wounds and equipment.
We have been drilling and digging wells since 2001. In that time we have completed 48 wells that are linked by miles of pipe to 15,185 people living in 164 villages. Our water projects also provide 15 schools and 11 clinics scattered throughout the region with water. The changes water makes in peoples’ lives are immediate and clearly visible. Within months the overall health and well being of a village is transformed for the better, the students at the schools are cleaner and healthier in appearance and the hygiene conditions of clinics and villages are vastly improved. Equally important is the improved productivity by the women who are now sending their children to school and weaving blankets instead of searching for water most of their lives as before.
We are ready to start on three major water projects that will provide 3,129 people living in 20 villages with easily accessible clean water for the first time in their lives. The women and children of these villages now walk an average of one mile each way for only one bucket full of water. In the dry season, when their nearest wells are dry, they must travel even further. Imagine having to do this two to three times every day! There are also 3 schools with 954 students that we will provide water to as these projects are completed