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Clean water is the best medicine for the people of southern Ethiopia's Awassa region

In the Awassa region of southern Ethiopia, a cup of water can be a killer if it’s from the wrong source.

The stark reality is that if you’re a child, you have a one in five chance of dying before your fifth birthday – all because of water you drink.

Right now, children and their families are drinking water from murky streams and parasite-infested ponds. They have no other choice given that clean water is simply unavailable.

While children are most affected, adults suffer as well. When parents are unable to work their crops or labor in the fields of others, the family goes hungry. Even one day lost to sickness can cause a family to go hungry for two or three days.

Friend, you can put a cup of clean water in the hands of people who are literally drinking themselves to death because they are forced to drink water that is not safe.

The tragedy, beyond the human suffering and death, is that the clean water that is so desperately needed is right beneath people’s feet. In most cases, the water is less than 100 meters below the surface.

For the past 25 years, we’ve been helping the people of Awassa gain access to these abundant supplies of clean water by drilling water wells with a TH-60 drilling rig. So far, the rig has drilled more than 100 wells, giving clean water to nearly 60,000 people!

Ten years have passed since the last major refit of the rig. The fact that the rig is still drilling for clean water 25 years after we first provided it is a testament to the determination of the Ethiopian drilling crews who diligently operate and care for the rig, despite very challenging operating conditions.

Refitting the rig will enable our Ethiopian water well technicians to continue drilling for clean water for another ten years and bring clean water to an additional 30,000 people!

Having clean water available right in villages means that children will be able to go to school, rather than trek alongside their mothers for ten or more kilometers a day in search of water.

Families will use the water to carefully irrigate small vegetable garden plots that will produce food for their own consumption and for sale at the local market – generating a much-needed source of income.

Water-borne diseases will no longer threaten the lives of children or adults and the combination of clean water, along with a reliable source of nutritious food, will ensure families remain healthy.

Clean water will transform lives, today and for years to come!

Learn more about our work in southern Ethiopia. Watch A Thirst For Africa