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Water for All International
Sharing God’s love by empowering poor rural families to solve chronic water and food problems
with their own resources
By Terry Waller
Jan. 18, 2007
update 2/30/2007
HOW DOES WATER FOR ALL HELP PEOPLE?
Water for All teaches the poor to drill their own water wells.
Water For All (WFA) shares a burden for poor rural families who lack adequate water. To help, WFA has developed a unique, manual/motorized, low cost water well drilling and pump technology that has proven to be very “family friendly” and is adaptable for use by the poor in a wide variety of underdeveloped areas. This means rural families can now be taught to organize and drill and maintain their own wells in many areas around the world. When this happens wells can be very inexpensively ($50-$150 in Bolivia, Nicaragua, $50-$250 in Cameroon, $200-$400 in Ethiopia). This is so because families take the risk of drilling, provide labor and the only out of pocket cost is the well casing and pump material. This allows the prospect of families having, for the first time, a personal family water supply. This means for the first time many poor families and communities have the prospect of permanently fixing their own water problem and to be owners of the solution!
About 2,000 low cost wells have been drilled by and for poor people in seven countries. Wells in many different water bearing formations have been drilled to depths up to 350ft with WFA technology.
Thanks for praying for and supporting Water For All! Below is more food for thought about the possibilites and benefits of training families to drill their own wells. Or check out the rest of the site and send us your thoughts or experiences. Thanks Terry Waller
Why does WFA make it a priority and ideal to train families to drill their own wells ? Why not just train well drillers to go out and drill wells for people? The risk involved in doing a well drilling business means well drilling technicians will have to charge to cover their risk and thus usually put the cost of a family well beyond the reach of the poor. This especially so if using orthodox rotary drilling rigs. When outside technicians are hired with outside donor money to come in and drill a well for people, many times their is no true local ownership of the well and the pump is soon broken. This has happens more times than can be mentioned. Collectively "owned" village wells and pumps are notorious for becoming broken and no one with the skills, interest, or money to keep them fixed. Plus children usually still have to haul water a good ways to house holds and studies have shown the water is usually contaminated before consumed. Water is too important to only be left in the hands of experts. Experts are great but usually aren't around when you need them or may have to charge so much for their services the poor can't afford them. There are still one billion people in the world without good access to water. Thus new approaches need to be tried. Our end goal is to empower families to be able to solve their own resource problems! The need is simply to great to wait for experts to come in and solve the water problem for people. Our goal is to make low cost well drilling a commonly known art in a community like digging a ditch or planting a tree. Our WFA family empowerment approach is different than the usual "donor" approach. While WFA applauds all groups working to provide more water to rural families, Here are some things to think about. WFA builds community and dignity. WFA is committed to teaching families to drill wells instead of training technicians to drill wells for families. Families working together with neighbors to drill their own wells, (called “water clubs” in Bolivia) build community and dignity and are the best way, in our experience, to reduce well costs enough to allow very poor families to have their own personal family water points.
- Over 2,000 total WFA wells in 7 countries have been drilled by and for the poor so far in Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cameroon, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Mexico. WFA also executes a long term Christian rural development program in Bolivia working directly with very poor Quechua homestead families in and around the village of San Julian.
- WFA’s drilling and pump technologies allow for mobilization of existent family and community assets. This results in end user ownership of water solutions and in rapid replication with a minimal need for external technical help and bureaucracy.
- All cultures and people groups have indigenous methods of organizing themselves to help each other do special projects. In North America it is called a “barn-raising.” In Bolivia among the Quechua it is called “Ayni.” Our technologies capitalize on this indigenous community asset.
- Our very low cost manual drilling approach means that, for the first time, many individual family or community compound wells are a real possibility.
- Prospects for an individual family water supply greatly increase enthusiasm and local ownership of drilling attempts.
- The work is extreamly hard and physical and local enthusiasm a must for good outcomes when useing manual drilling approaches. It is hard, hard work, but families gladly work hard when they feel true ownership!
- Local owner enthusiasm facilitates the mobilization of existing community and/or family assets for collective drilling.
Many family wells drilled in an area means that water resources are spread out over a larger area.
Less pressure on individual water points means families can be taught to build and maintain their own pumps. Expensive, heavy duty pumps require special technical skill to repair - this expertise is not always available at a village level. Better if everyone knows how to fix a pump!
Teaching a whole community to drill many wells ensures long term, sustainable water security for families and communities.
WFA’s focus on direct training of rural families often results in the spontaneous creation of artisan well drilling businesses. These will continue to ensure local water supply, at an affordable price, for the long term.
Training families to drill their own wells with WFA’s “family friendly” method makes individual family wells possible and keeps cost very low. The low cost and simplicity creates huge local demand and fosters spontaneous replication.
In Bolivia and elsewhere our program oftraining families to drill has created many spin off artisan well drilling and tool making enterprises. These are started, owned and operated by and for the poor themselves.
If many people in a community are trained to drill wells and make pumps, healthy competition keeps prices low.
How else does Water For All help people with physical needs? Water for All also develops, tests, and teaches complementary low cost water and agricultural technologies to help rural families, farmers, and their communities in developing nations. WFA has developed and manufactures very low cost “family friendly” windmills, micro irrigation systems, light zero till tractors, sprayers, and seeders. |
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