One of the projects Together We Can Change the World supports is building wells in poor villages near Siem Reap, Cambodia. Each Spring, our group visits the new wells we’ve funded and we meet the families they serve.
When we visited this well in May, we learned the story of this family who now benefits from fresh water being steps away. This woman is 61 years old. She now cares for her grandchildren, ages 6 and 11. Their mother died and their father moved away, leaving the children with their grandmother.
She bicycles to work each day at her job as a cleaner. Prior to having a nearby well, she’d have to fetch water on her bike. This limited how much water she could bring home.
Now with a well close by, she has abundant water and can use it to grow a patch of vegetables to augment her family’s meals. She might do what other well recipients have done — raise chickens to increase the kids’ nourishment with fresh eggs or sell them to neighbors. Or maybe she’ll get some pigs and sell the piglets for extra cash. None of this would be possible without easy access to fresh water.
Also with abundant water, her family can take more frequent baths and wash dishes better, thus improving their health.
She shares the well with a few other neighbors and now they can all improve their lives.
This well was donated by the Entrepreneurs Organization of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Twelve of their members were with us to dedicate the well.
Most of us take clean, abundant water for granted. We turn on the spigot anytime we want to wash something or quench our thirst. We can’t imagine how our lives would be so much more difficult if we had to fetch fresh water each day — perhaps by bicycle. It would dramatically limit how you used the precious water.
We’re delighted to provide life-changing wells to these wonderful people.
If you’d like to sponsor a well, let us know. Your donation of $400 covers the materials and our trusted volunteers in Siem Reap then build the wells. You get to decide the wording for a plaque for the well that says whatever you’d like — in honor of someone special, an organization, or im memory of a departed love one. Or maybe you’d like to just send a few words of encouragement to the families that will see it each day. We’ll send you a picture of the well with the plaque and the family it serves, the location of the well in case you want to visit it, and the names of those the well serves. Go to www.TWCCTW.org for more info.
