Main fundraiser photo

Water for Hope and Change Project

Tax deductible
Water is at the core of sustainable development and is critical for socioeconomic development, energy and food production, healthy ecosystems, and for human survival itself. Water is also at the heart of adaptation to climate change, serving as the crucial link between the society and the environment. 

Water-related challenges:
2.1 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water services. (WHO/UNICEF 2017)
340,000 children under five die every year from diarrhoeal diseases. (WHO/UNICEF 2015)
Water scarcity already affects four out of every 10 people. (WHO)
90% of all natural disasters are water-related. (UNISDR)

Blue Ridge Community College NSLS Team and Enactus Team students
will be raising funds to drill a well for the small village of MARTHA, outside of Kiserian, Kenya. The residents of the village are women diagnosed with HIV. They and their children have been shunned from society due to the stigma associated with this disease. For the past four years, Blue Ridge Community College students have been working with women living among several settlements, training them to produce and sell products including solar lights,  biomass briquettes, and soap products to earn income. The women work as a cooperative and  pool their profits to help pay for their HIV medication and to provide for one another (and families) when someone  becomes ill. Blue Ridge Community College has started multiple goat farms and chicken coops, but has decided that what this community really needs is water.

Many of these women walk five miles to gather water. Children are also tasked with this back-breaking chore. Water is life.

By drilling wells in the villages, these families will be able to raise livestock and crops, as well as have a  clean, safe water source for their own use. In Kenya, water can be sold to earn extra income,in addition to the women producing and selling  agricultural products.  Our goal of $30,000 will drill a well in the village of MARTHA.  The village consists of a one acre area which  is home to 15 widows who are HIV positive.  Including their children, 75 people will benefit from this water source in MARTHA, and the water will be shared with the community - reaching  over 200 additional families.  This well will change the lives of thousands!

Our goal is to raise these funds by April 2019. Lives will be changed.... and this well is a mechanism to create for sustainable change. All donations are tax deductible. Please help our students change the world and provide clean, accessible water to one of the world's most challenged populations.

Women who will benefit from the Well for Hope & Change Project



A similar well to what we plan to drill



BRCC Goat Farm participating family


A family benefiting from the Well of Hope and BRCC programs


Access to water will increase opportunity to raise food and livestock .... potentially generating income.



Children who will benefit from clean water

Organizer

Rebecca Evans
Organizer
Weyers Cave, VA
Blue Ridge Community College Educational Foundation, Inc. (BRCC Educational Foundation)
Beneficiary

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