LIFE Outreach Drills Water Wells in Southern Africa

LIFE Outreach International is gearing up to drill more fresh water wells throughout southern Africa, which will provide access to clean, safe drinking water in remote villages. To date, LIFE's mission crews have drilled more than 200 wells in four nations.

FORT WORTH, TEXAS -- LIFE Outreach International is gearing up to drill more fresh water wells throughout southern Africa, which will provide access to clean, safe drinking water in remote villages.

To date, LIFEs mission crews have drilled more than 200 wells in four African nations. In 2003, mission crews plan to drill an additional 150 wells in some of the most impoverished provinces of South Africa and remote villages in Angola, Mozambique and southern Sudan.

Beyond the water quality reports of African villages are the grieving faces of families who have lost loved ones to waterborne diseases, such as cholera. One of the most devastating diseases in developing nations, cholera can bring death within three to six hours of contact with the bacteria.

Some 85 percent of all diseases in children under age 5 in Africa are waterborne. In village after village, stagnant ponds filled with deadly bacteria are the only source of water. With every drink to quench their thirsts, entire families...entire communities risk their health and their lives.

Five million people-about 70 percent of Sudans population-do not have access to clean drinking water. In areas where LIFE has not drilled water wells, the villages are experiencing the highest rates of cholera.

LIFE uses a mobile water well-drilling system designed by engineers in the United States and Europe and with input from mission teams in the field. This equipment effectively bores holes up to 300 to 600 feet deep.

For more information about MISSION: WATER FOR LIFE, access www.lifetoday.org.