In Sub-Saharan Africa, People Walk Over 10 Miles for Hours Each Day Just to Get Water: Now, 'New Life' Is Trickling in
An estimated 319 million people have no access to safe drinking water in sub-Saharan Africa, with many of them enduring the daily hardship of fetching water at the nearest pond several miles away from their homes.
Kanze Kahindi, who lives with her family in rural southeast Kenya, is one of the millions who have to walk long distances for hours—in her case, 13 miles each day—just to fill a plastic water container, CBN News reported.
"I would be a lot healthier than I am today if I didn't have to travel so far for water," she said. "My legs are sore, my back hurts, and I'm always in pain."
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Kahindi said she has been fetching water since she was seven years old. She is 47 years old, which means that she has been doing the backbreaking daily task for 40 years now.
What's even more shocking is that the water people collect from the pond is not even clean since it comes from a pond polluted by animal and human waste. As a result, some 2,000 children die each day from water-related diseases, according to CBN News.
To help alleviate the plight of the millions of water-deprived Africans, the Christian organization World Vision has been drilling borehole wells and installing hundreds of miles of pipeline to transport water to tens of thousands of families across Kenya since 2008.
CBN News recently witnessed the celebration in a village where residents gathered to watch water gushing out of a pipe installed by World Vision drillers.
"This water will bring new life to our communities," said one resident, as she watched the World Vision drillers.
In Nigeria, another arid African country, Open Doors USA is also doing its share in sharing the gift of life to the country's water-deprived people.
The Christian charity has drilled a borehole in one community whose residents used to walk long distances just to get their daily supply of water from a murky stream.
The new source of fresh and clean water was a cause of celebration in the village, some of whose residents were left speechless at the sight of water gushing out of the pipe. "I have no words to say other than a simple thank you," one Christian mother named Gloria told Open Doors.
To these villagers, the borehole is a symbol of hope. "I cannot describe our suffering. It was just too much. Now that we have an abundance of water, I think it is a wonder that we all survived those days," a villager named Joseph said.
From 2009 to 2016, Open Doors has provided more than 40 boreholes to several villages in Nigeria.
