Water for Life Initiative
What is next after my donation?
Upon donation, you will receive a confirmation of your giving within the month.
For donations for $2,500 or above, we will connect your donation to a specific village that needs a well and we will send you a well assignment report, telling you of all the details of the village. You will receive this within 4 months after your donation date.
For any donations of $8,500 (donation of one full well), we will also send out a DVD containing videos of the well, GPS coordinates of the well, the sights and sounds of the actual village that your well is located and any interviews of villagers that were conducted at our well visit. This process could take any time from 8-15 months.
What is included in my report?
Upon donation of a well, a ‘well assignment report’ will be sent to you listing all the facts and details on the well and the village that you have an impact. These facts include GPS coordinates, well statistics like depth, flow rate, type of pump being used, village facts like demographics, population and community activities like sanitation and hygiene and borehole committee training sessions. it also includes a map showing where the village is in relation to the rest of the country.
What am I paying for when I sponsor a water project?
The $8,500 covers the cost of the construction of one deep-capped water well, which includes salaries for our drill and pump installation crew, construction materials like pumps, casings, cement for the concrete pad, our regular machine maintenance costs, fuel for moving our machines to the site, and periodic water quality testing like total dissolve solids, nitrite/ nitrate content, bacteria and pH testing. Another part of the cost is that it covers our programs for borehole committee and hygiene and sanitation training.
Why could it take up to 15 months to get my DVD?
While we want to report to our donors as fast as possible, we also want to make sure that the well and all the auxiliary programs work. The amount of time is critical for us to ensure that our sustainability components are in place and allowing time for the training to take place. our regular site visits takes a bit of time to complete. Sometimes when it’s raining season, roads are just not accessible, so we have to wait until the drier season to go to the village to visit. Because it is highly tailored to the donor, the production time is needed.
(Note: this is an average timeframe and this report is only for those that gave to a full well.)
Can I pick the country where my money goes?
You may give your preference of one of the countries that the WFLI works in, however, if you do not have a preference, the funds will be given to the project that is needed the most. In an unlikely event where your donation has to be re allocated due to unpredictable circumstances, we will contact you to let you know of the situation.
Do I get to decide where the well will be?
Since we work closely with local governments in many countries to determine where we should best deploy our crew there and the fact that we have local staff there that access the situation to determine where best to put the next water access point, donors are unable to pick where the well is actually provided.
What can go wrong?
There are a number of factors that can come into play. Although not frequent, we do encounter some areas where we have dry wells or wells that is producing water with high salinity, in that case, we will try our best to find another location close to the village.
The areas that we work are often far away from the city, especially during the rainy seasons, our crew may have a harder time to reach to the particular location. There are also rare occasions of machine failure which may delay the pace of providing a well.
After the well is provided, there are a few occasions where a pump or pipe will break, due to normal wear and tear. In which case, the borehole committee of that village will notify our regional repair team to come for repair.
We are committed to give you not just a water well, but a working one. We will try our best to resolve the problems that might prevent villages to have clean water.
How do you address the issue of sustainability of these wells?
- our long-term presence and commitment to the country that we are operating ensures that we have ongoing contacts and follow up to check and see whether these wells are working properly.
- the water committee concept is a good example of empowering the local villagers so that they know how to up keep the well.
- each committee charges a small fee (often they are a few cents) per use/ per bucket to enable to village to repair a broken well, because they will have the means for repair.
- we have also trained and equipped regional repair teams who are from the village with the tools and knowledge to repair broken wells and they could service to other areas.
- we use reliable and robust technologies in our drilling and pump so that one can get the materials for the parts for repair in country and not replying on imports.
