Our team is leaving for Mozambique on January 13th to dig our next clean water well! We are so excited to go and document the life altering effects of clean water and to share the stories of lives impacted by its presence.

Originally posted by Mozambique team-member  here

What’s hard to believe is that there are more than 1 billion people living without clean water.

In Mozambique, only 29% of the population has access to clean drinking water. In this beautiful country of more than 22 million people, roughly 14 million go without clean water every day. The infant mortality rate for Mozambican newborns is greater than 10%.

Babies + disease infested water + diarrhea + dehydration = death before they blow out candle number five.

The numbers make sense in light of the fact that the leading causes of death are all related to water born diseases: Bacterial and Protozoan Diarrhea, Hepatitis A, Typhoid Fever and Schistosomiasis.

But who cares about numbers. Numbers rarely change peoples minds, push their imaginations to new depths, catalyze habitual change or motivate the affluent to give to the poor. Stories do. Action does. We can casually dismiss the numbers and let the digits roll off our backs, but if we choose to ignore the stories of the diseased and dying, the orphans and the widows, then their blood, so to say, is on our hands. Dirty water is killing thousands of people every day. Lack of access to clean water is destroying villages, tearing families apart and ravaging lives one drink, one bath, one swim at a time.

I’m going to Mozambique in January of next year with an amazing team of people not to bring back more numbers and facts but to bring back stories and images of those held captive by their water.

It’s sure to be quite the journey.

With creative care, borrowed with happy permission from Love{All}People

Source of stats

Why Water?

Because dirty water leads to more deaths, annually, than all forms of violence and war, combined.

Because over 1 billion people, worldwide, lack access to clean water. 1 billion people. That’s 1 in 6 who don’t have access to clean drinking water.

Because the average American uses 159 gallons of clean, fresh water every day while the rest of the developing world uses 1/15 as much.

Because African women walk over 40 billion hours each year carrying cisterns weighing up to 18 kilograms to gather water that is usually not safe to drink.

Because 38,000 children under the age of 5 die from drinking unsafe water, every week. Every. Single. Week.

Because water is a human right as declared so by the United Nations. And we agree.

Because we are desperately in love with those who desperately need clean water, and it is our deepest yearning to help them. Join us as we work to harvest clean water in Africa. Join us and learn more by reading more stories from Blog Action Day 2010: WATER a change.org event

We’re taking part in Blog Action Day 2010: Water put on by change.org! What an awesome opportunity to initiate a global conversation regarding an issue (clean water as a human right!) that we care deeply for. Join us and over 2,000 other bloggers from around the world as we take one day, October 15th, to write about a single topic–Water.

Whether initiating awareness in Indianapolis or taking soil samples in Mozambique, our driving passion is to harvest clean water for those in need.

We long to rejuvenate tribes–transform villages–educate, serve, love, and passionately care for those dying from the consumption of dirty water. Our hope is to save lives by invigorating families with the sustaining power of fresh water.

One well.

One well can change everything. Everything! Fresh water, flowing through the veins of a dying community, can resurrect its perishing life. Everything we do is committed to helping transform African communities through the provision of accessibility to clean water. It is our drive. It is why we exist. It is how we love. It is the essence of who we are.

Water is more valuable than oil, more precious than gold

–Amie LoPresti

Charissa Sparks of MediaGlobal just published Reducing Poverty Through Water and Sanitation featuring our very own Amie LoPresti!

“MediaGlobal is an independent international media organization, based in the United Nations, creating awareness in the global media on social justice and development issues in the world’s least developed countries.” Thank you Charissa and MediaGlobal for helping us in our drive to harvest clean water for the millions of people in Africa who are currently without.