Our aim is to implement programs that provide access to clean water for those in need throughout Buturi’s 6 Villages. Checkout the map above or the list below to see what we’re doing, where we’ve been, and how you can help with the alleviation of poverty and the provision of clean water. Poverty in Africa is often caused by a lack of access to clean, safe, drinking water and proper sanitation. There are a number of reasons why poverty has become an epidemic in Africa. Our goal is to bring clean, sustainable water supplies to within 1km (1/2 mile) of a village. Your support will make that possible! The lack of water is an often insurmountable obstacle to helping oneself. You can’t grow food, you can’t build housing, you can’t stay healthy, you can’t stay in school and you can’t keep working without water. Without clean water: the possibility of breaking out of the cycle of poverty is incredibly slim. For Buturi’s women and children especially, this crisis is real. It affects the whole community every minute of the day. With unclean water sources often miles from villages, many of the able-bodied members of a community are forced to spend hours each day simply finding and transporting water. The typical container used for water collection in Africa, the jerry can, weighs over 40 pounds when it’s completely full. Imagine how demanding it would be to carry the equivalent of a 5-year-old child for three hours out of each day. And some women carry even more, up to 70 pounds in a barrel carried on the back. That’s like carrying a baby hippo. However some of the women not only carry the water but also their own baby as well. What are the diseases caused by dirty water?: Waterborne diseases are caused by drinking contaminated or dirty water. Contaminated water can cause many types of diarrheal diseases, including Cholera, and other serious illnesses such as Guinea worm disease, Typhoid, and Dysentery. Water-related diseases cause 3.4 million deaths each year. Children die every day because they simply don’t have access to safe water and toilets. Water and sanitation-related diseases such as diarrhoea are one of the biggest causes of death for children under 5 around the world. Every day, more than 800 children die from preventable diseases caused by poor water, and a lack of sanitation and hygiene. Buturi community is a typical example of this situation. Poor sanitation, water and hygiene affect more than just children’s health. Children – particularly girls – often miss out on education, because many schools lack proper toilets and hand-washing facilities. Others miss out because, rather than going to school, they have to spend their days making long journeys to collect dirty water from a dirty pond, where the water is shared with animals who don’t just drink it but also leave their excrement in it.
Your contribution to our Water Resource Development Program gives us the ability to keep doing our work on the ground in Buturi communites who are desperately in need of our help.
The Buturi Makongoro Village would like to thank the Devon community for their gift of life – water.
