($15 … 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 200 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 for eight years. In that time we have completed 42 wells that are linked by miles of pipe to 147 villages, 15 schools and 11 clinics scattered throughout the region. 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.
Our team can complete up to 5 hand-dug wells in a year. For late 2009 and 2010 we have targeted 6 springs that are suitable for this type of well. We start by digging the well to a size that will provide the water needs for the village or, where possible, for several villages. The wells are lined with stone and cement and then covered with a corrugated tin roof. The completed well has a hand pump and washing platform for the villagers to use.
These wells provide clean water and change the lives of up to several hundred people living in the nearby villages. Some of the wells can also be used for small scale crop irrigation in our farming projects. Each well can be fitted with a small mechanical pump that can be used to irrigate up to an acre of nearby land providing not only water but also food for the village.
Our water team are experts at maximizing the number of people benefiting from a single water source. I many areas there are no springs anywhere near the villages so we engineered a cost effective way to move water great distances in to those areas. Each of these three projects support the water needs of clinics, schools and thousands of people living in dozens of villages spread out over very large areas.
Each project requires a generator & submersible water pump, a mains water storage center and a series of water storage tanks placed at each village that is along the miles water pipe that link them to the well. All of our projects are supported by the villagers who provide much of the labor needed to dig pipe trenches and sometimes even the wells. A project like this will take between 6 months to a year to complete.