Nonprofit Water Organizations
More than 2 billion people live in arid or semi-arid regions, which are considered too dry or barren to support vegetation due to the small amount of rainfall they receive.[1] People living in these countries are literally dying from water-borne illnesses—which is why the work that nonprofit water organizations do is so essential.
According to a United Nations report, “Desertification, land degradation, and drought already affect more than three billion people, mostly poor rural communities, small-scale farmers, women, youth, indigenous peoples, and other at-risk groups. The situation is particularly acute in the dryland regions that cover over 45% of the total land area and are home to one in three people in the world today.”[2]
Drylands cover about 40 percent of the earth, but deep underneath the barren land, water flows. While in South Asia, despite some villages having wells, they still often dry up during drought season. However, GFA World drills its Jesus Wells 600 feet or more below the surface to ensure continual flow of clean water, even during droughts.
A clean water charity can literally saves lives by digging deep wells. This is why GFA world installs Jesus Wells. Without these wells, villagers may spend hours a day walking to water sources, which are often contaminated and cause severe illness.
Even when water sources are nearby, they are often contaminated. For example, the water may contain heavy metals such as arsenic, nickel, mercury, lead and more. Ingesting heavy metals can cause cardiovascular disorders, kidney problems, brain damage and increased risk of cancer and diabetes.[3] Water containing arsenic is currently poisoning millions of people in Asia; some experts refer to it as the largest mass poisoning in history, affecting more than 140 million people worldwide.[4]
Many of these dangerous heavy metals come from vertical pipes that well-meaning groups have installed to address the problem of people gathering surface water contaminated with bacteria and other pathogens that can cause diarrheal diseases and deaths. These pipes delved only about 30 meters into the earth in places like Vietnam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Nepal and Burma. By the mid-1980s, it became apparent that skin lesions and other signs of arsenic poisoning, which take between five and 20 years to physically manifest, were increasing.[5]
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In just two decades, GFA World has provided nearly 9 million people with clean, safe water through its deeply drilled Jesus Wells.[6] The heavy-duty handpumps are built to operate 20 million cycles—or 20 years with eight hours of daily use. Standard specifications allow us to easily replace parts to keep the wells operating for decades.
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[1] “Special Report: Special Report on Climate Change and Land: Desertification.” The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/chapter-3/. July 2021.
[2] “Global Land Outlook 2nd edition.” United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. https://www.unccd.int/resources/global-land-outlook/global-land-outlook-2nd-edition. April 27, 2022.
[3] Rehman, Kanwal, et al. “Prevalence of Exposure of Heavy Metals and Their Impact on Health Consequences.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28643849/. January 2018.
[4] “UNICEF Policy Brief: Mitigating arsenic in drinking water.” UNICEF. https://www.unicef.org/reports/unicef-policy-brief. June 2018.
[5] “Digging deep for safer water.” Chemistry World. https://www.chemistryworld.com/features/digging-deep-for-safer-water/7218.article. March 27, 2014
[6] “Jesus Wells.” GFA World. https://www.gfa.org/jesus-wells/. June 7, 2022.