How can drilling a well transform a community?

Drilling a well is much more than simply installing a water supply. In many countries, where access to clean water is a major challenge, it embodies hope. It plays a crucial role in the transformation of the communities that benefit from it and can work miracles. A well will improve their living conditions in various ways. Let's explore its positive impacts together!

Drilling a well: access to a health source

Drinking water for all

Drilling a well in a village gives access to a precious treasure: clean water that is safe to drink near where you live. Without it, people often rely on potentially contaminated water sources such as rivers, ponds, or shallow wells. Their consumption exposes them to considerable risks, especially waterborne diseases. However, in 2022, at least 1.7 billion people in the world still use a contaminated source of drinking water !

Disease prevention

Diarrhea, dysentery, cholera, poliomyelitis, etc. Each year, more than 500,000 deaths due to waterborne diseases are to be reported in the world. Thanks to drinking water wells, these diseases are receding. Drilling a well means building solid ramparts against evils that too often eat away at communities.

Hygiene at your fingertips

Access to a source of clean water in a village becomes a powerful instrument to transform the hygiene conditions of its inhabitants.

The simple fact of being able to wash your hands, cook with clean water, take showers profoundly changes the daily life of communities! In addition, a well drilling project is often accompanied by educational initiatives on hygiene. All this contributes to the prevention of infectious diseases, but also improves the well-being of the population. And not to forget anything, well drilling is frequently associated with sanitation projects such as the construction of latrines and sanitary facilities.

The well, a vector of societal transformation
‍

Empowering women

You should know that most of the time, it is women and children who devote long hours to collecting water in water points far from the village where they live. The arrival of a well in the heart of the village is therefore synonymous with extra time for these women. They can invest in more productive activities, such as education, paid work, or any other initiative that contributes to household and community prosperity. The well is therefore a powerful catalyst for promotion of gender equality.

Time saved for education

Thanks to the drilling of a drinking water well in a village, children can go to school regularly. The absenteeism rate is falling and the school enrollment rate is increasing.

A well for food security

Water for the land and the animals

Drinking water is vital for humans, but it is also vital for agriculture and livestock. Water well drilling projects allow beneficiary communities to consider the regular irrigation of their crops. They can ensure the development of healthy and productive local agriculture and even diversify their crops. Drilling a well is fighting food insecurity.

Towards the self-sufficiency of communities

With water from wells, crops are more and more abundant and hunger is decreasing in the villages. Communities are gradually becoming self-sufficient and their resilience in the face of climate change is growing. In addition, to ensure the functioning of the drinking water well year after year, it is important that local populations can maintain it and keep it in good condition.

At LIFE, we do everything to ensure that the families supported take ownership of the project and invest in maintaining the well. The establishment of a Water Management Committee composed of villagers is organized by our teams. We are in charge of training their participants. And to ensure the management of the well in complete autonomy, a system of financial participation of users is determined. For more than 10 years, we have installed more than 2000 wells in 10 different countries!

Drilling a well to boost the local economy
‍

Drinking water wells have an obvious positive impact on agriculture and livestock. But that's not all! They also contribute to local economic development in other ways.

Businesses that depend on water in their production processes can in fact emerge in the village.. And thanks to the stable water supply, their production can increase, as well as the quality of their products, and their competitiveness in the market.

This diversification of a community's economic activities reduces its dependence on a single sector and increases its resilience in the face of economic fluctuations.

Towards the strengthening of social cohesion
‍

Relieve tensions

Drilling a well is much more than just a source of water, it is an instrument of peace.
In countries with high water stress such as North Africa or the Middle East, tensions may arise as climate change threatens groundwater. Water can be a trigger for conflicts, in addition to a multitude of other factors, whether ethnic, political, religious, or economic. Clan wars over a water source, or on a larger scale around a hydraulic dam, are becoming more and more numerous. Their reason is often linked to the water needed for agriculture and livestock. The arrival of drinking water near villages and communities will ease tensions. Drilling a well is the promise of a more peaceful future, where water is no longer a source of conflict, but a symbol of unity and prosperity.

A culture of sharing

Thanks to the multiplication of boreholes allowing equitable access to groundwater, conflicts give way to the development of sharing and cooperation between inhabitants. Less competition for resources, more collaboration in the maintenance and management of wells, better transmission of sharing values for future generations, etc. Social ties and solidarity are being strengthened. The well becomes the glue that unites populations and makes them more resilient.

No more doubts! Drilling a well is a powerful catalyst for transformation in a community. It unleashes its potentials, paves the way to a future where health, food security and social cohesion can finally emerge and flourish. Every drop of water drawn from a well becomes a promise of a better future. A promise that is fulfilled every day for the populations of these villages.

Join us in a well drilling project that is changing lives!