SHARE YOUR DREAM: Water for Rural El Salvador
What's one of your big dreams?
I have a dream that one day the community of 120 families in rural El Salvador, which I have come to call home in the 2 ½ years I have lived there as a Peace Corps Volunteer, might have sufficient, clean water to meet their basic needs.
I have a dream that children will no longer suffer and die of diarrheas caused by poor hygiene, in turn a result of water scarcity. I have a dream that mothers will get a solid night´s sleep, without dragging themselves from their mats at all hours of the night to check and see if perhaps they can fill a water vessel from the trickle coming from the one public faucet. I have a dream that young girls will no longer be forced to travel an hour down a steep bluff and back up again to bring back each jug of water from distant spring, but that instead they will go to school and have opportunities for a better future.
I have a dream that those of us who are so fortunate might realize this, be thankful, and be moved to compassionate action on behalf of our brothers and sisters who struggle to meet their basic needs.
What are some things you have in place for this dream?
* Detailed plans for two projects: a Solar Pumping System to pump water from a well to each home in the village, a household Bio-Sand Filters project to purify the water to be used for human consumption and hygiene.
* Awesome, dedicated, giving community leaders convinced of the importance of these projects for the community´s well-being and committed to working to make them a reality
* A Water Committee to maintain and administrate the water system, a Health Committee to promote proper use of the filters and teach good hygiene, and an Agriculture and Environment Committee to continue reforestation and watershed conservation efforts to sustain the aquifer
* Technical support of Engineers Without Borders and the Energy and Water Resources department at the Universidad Centroamericana for the Solar Pumping System
* Technical support of Pure Water for the World for the Bio-Sand Filters Project
* Coordination with Rotary Clubs in the U.S. and El Salvador
* Detailed project proposals, brochures, and Power Point presentations promoting the projects.
* Tax-deductible donation mechanisms.
What are some things you still need for this dream?
* Dreamers like YOU who believe that these people are precious children of God and deserve to have their basic needs met, who believe in these projects, and are willing to mobilize their faith communities, classes, places of work, and civic groups to pray for these projects and promote financial giving to these projects. I have the proposals, the brochures, the Power Point presentations, the tax-deductible donation mechanisms all set up. If you want to help, just let me know and I will send you all the information. It´s easy ... just hand out brochures, or ask for twenty minutes to make a presentation.
We have knocked on door after door after door of government aid agencies, businesses, and NGOs in search of the necessary resources to realize this vision of clean, affordable water, but they have been slow and unresponsive to the human need in the community. So I have decided to return to the grass-roots – to appeal directly to people of faith and conscience in the confidence that the Spirit of compassion moving in and through each of you can accomplish marvelous things. Even my own family now says that I´ll never find the resources to bring water to this corner of El Salvador. They say that I´m a dreamer ... but I say, I´m not the only one.
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