Note From The Board – April 2015
Note From The Unite4Africa Board – March 2015 – Rob Reilly
It is said that a water well can transform a third world village, improving the health and productivity of an entire community. Each year thousands of these wells are installed by mission or humanitarian groups with the best of intentions. They identify a location, send a team to build the water well, celebrate with the locals upon the well completion and then fly their teams home.
If a water well is such a transformative force for these communities, then why are 60% or more of the wells drilled in Africa not working? Talking with a community leader in rural Mozambique about a large hand pumped well that sat idle, he said “That is an American charity well. It is broken. We told the organization that built it that it broke a few years ago.” They had done nothing to repair it to date. This is a common and growing problem in Africa; wells are machines and machines breakdown and require maintenance.
Unite for Africa approaches Africa differently, we work with community leaders and have them decide what projects they want to work on in their community. They then prioritize those projects. The community contributes toward the cost and construction of the project and the community is trained and responsible for the maintenance of the project. Because they view this as their well and have been trained on what will be required to keep it operational, they are careful to set aside the resources to provide for its maintenance.
For me, the general approach to missions used for decades “relief work”, highlights the perils of not taking the time to train and empower the local community. Broken water wells are an example of this systemic problem, the same is true for building and operating schools and medical clinics, etc. What Unite4Africa does is a process that can and does take years; it’s also a sustainable process. Unite for Africa is committed to training and empowering Africans to reach Africa.
Rob Reilly