A Well for Chamhawi

The availability of healthy drinkable water is something that is as taken for granted as your ability to read this post. In many towns in Africa, women and young children, especially  girls, have the chore to go long distances to get water for their families.  In Chamhawi, Tanzania the work these women and girls do is equivalent to walking ⅓ of Boston Common carrying  a squirming two year old in you arms. Then once home, the women and girls have to  boil the water that they just collected because there is no such thing as filtration: water borne illnesses are real. Half of all the hospital beds are for people who get sick from their water and over 4,000 children die daily from lack of sanitation.  

At first glance collecting and boiling water seems fairly annoying but imagine having to do that every time you needed water: cooking, washing, brushing your teeth or just drinking when you’re thirsty can become an hours long endeavor.  

Trinity Episcopal Church of Canton, Massachusetts has partnered with the Anglican parish of St. Andrews in the village of Chamhawi, Tanzania to drill a well.  Clean water is a human right.