WILLS POINT, TX – Gospel for Asia (GFA World), founded by KP Yohannan issued the first part of a Special Report update authored by Palmer Holt of InChrist Communications on solving the world water crisis, including major initiatives to defeat the age-old problem.
For millions of people around the world, finding clean water is a daily struggle. Like all of us, they need water to drink, to wash in and to grow their crops. When they can’t find it, terrible things happen: Farmers lose their livelihoods; people suffer the slow, insidious effects of chronic dehydration; entire families contract dysentery or arsenic poisoning; and too often, people die.
The issue is really twofold: 1) In many places, there simply isn’t enough water available; and 2) Often, the water that people do have is contaminated. Remedies exist for both problems, ranging from complex and costly to astonishingly simple. But sadly, most of the people who desperately need these solutions don’t have access to them—yet.
In my previous special report for Gospel for Asia (GFA) entitled “Dying of Thirst: The Global Water Crisis,” I unpacked the global quest for access to safe, clean water. This article highlights three major initiatives that are addressing the world water crisis and one practical way you can personally get involved.
Wells Find Water Where There Is None
Roughly 40 percent of the world’s land mass is arid or semi-arid, receiving little rainfall. About 2 billion people live in these dry areas, 90 percent of them in developing countries where water infrastructure is limited or nonexistent. Yet they all need water to survive. How do they find it?
For many of them, each day begins with a trek to the nearest waterhole, which may be miles away. Life becomes a dreary quest for survival as they spend precious hours seeking the day’s supply of water. That leaves little time or energy for more productive activities. It’s no surprise that so many remain mired in abject poverty.
Yet, even in these dry areas, there is often water underground. Government agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have devoted vast resources to installing wells for needy populations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. These efforts, though earnest and well-motivated, often fail in the long term for a number of reasons.
• In arid regions, there may be ample water during the rainy season, but then the water table recedes during the dry months. Wells are often too shallow to reach this deeper water, so they become inactive.
The solution: drill deeper.
This is the strategy now being employed by city authorities in urban areas like Bangalore, India, where an exploding population has strained water resources to the limit. The older wells in the city were typically 300 feet deep. Now, newer wells reach depths of up to 1,500 feet to tap the hidden reserves. And for the time being, they’re meeting the city’s burgeoning needs.
This approach is also being used effectively by private relief agencies, such as Gospel for Asia (GFA World). Through Jesus Wells installed by its field partners, Gospel for Asia (GFA) has helped bring year-round water to many villages in South Asia, each well serving an average of 300 people. By drilling wells more than 600 feet down, villagers can access the deep water that was unreachable before. And Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported Jesus Wells are built to last up to two decades.
In one Asian village, 15 families were relying on water from a polluted pond, convinced that a well would be impossible in their rocky hillside terrain. But through the intervention of a local Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported pastor, workers drilled through the solid rock and found water. Most importantly, the workers didn’t stop there. They kept drilling to reach the deeper parts of the water table. That well now provides consistent water for the villagers even through the dry seasons.
• Another common problem has to do with well maintenance. Many well-intentioned organizations come into undeveloped areas and spend their time and money installing wells. But then they leave. The villagers often don’t know how to maintain the wells, so these valuable resources become useless. As a result, in Africa alone, an estimated 50,000 such projects now lie abandoned.
The remedy is to bring local people into the projects from the start
so they feel an ownership stake, and then show them how to maintain the wells for the long term. In an effort to provide lasting solutions, Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported field partners use local workers who use locally produced components to install the wells, and then they help train the villagers themselves to maintain the wells. As a result, those wells have stood the test of time. Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported workers recently revisited one of their earliest well installations and were pleasantly surprised to find it still operational—20 years later. Because of that well, life in the village has changed dramatically.
As Saamel, one of the villagers, observes, “Now people don’t have to go to distant places to fetch water.”
Furthermore, the impact of a clean water well on Arnab and his family in Asia can be watched online.
We also have a growing list of Clean Water FAQs that address various clean water concerns around the globe.
Of course, that well has needed periodic maintenance during its 20 years of service. And when it did, the local villagers stepped up.
Saamel notes, “Whenever this Jesus Well breaks down or needs some maintenance or repair, people in this village contribute money and they actually get it fixed.” As a result, “There has been no time that this Jesus Well is not in use … people been using it ever since that was installed.”
That marks a stark contrast to other wells in the area that provided foul-tasting water and eventually broke down. Now, Saamel observes, people from three nearby villages come to use the Jesus Well for its clean, reliable water.
“The water is very good and tasty and safe to drink,” he says. “So people don’t have to go to other water source, and they used this water for drinking and domestic chores, for giving to the cattle or whatever need they have, cleaning and washing; they used this water almost for everything. So, this well has been great help and great use for the entire villagers.”
As this story makes clear, encouraging people to invest in their own infrastructure is one key to making these lifesaving improvements sustainable.
Read the rest of Gospel for Asia’s Special Report on Solving the World Water Crisis … For Good: Lasting Solutions Can Defeat an Age-old Problem: Part 2
This Special Report originally appeared on gfa.org.
Read another Special Report from Gospel for Asia on Dying of Thirst: The Global Water Crisis.
Read the Global Clean Water Crisis Report: Finding Solutions to Humanity’s Need for Pure, Safe Water.
Click here, to read more blogs on Patheos from Gospel for Asia.
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