Leah's iSearch

When Ellery, Ben, Daniel and I decided we wanted to build a well, we really didn’t think there would be too many organizations to choose from. But upon entering “building water wells” into Google, hundreds of results came up. Here are some of the sites that really stood out to me:

Ryan’s Well

Already having some background information on the foundation because of a recent project I did, the story of Ryan as a young boy doing chores and public speaking in order to raise money for wells in developing countries was not new. But I did learn about some of their projects and system of donations. For example, Ryan’s Well conducts community driven solutions, where students and community members plan and talk about ways to create new clean water and sanitation sources, which they raise money to create then see to the management of those sources. Ryan’s Well also educates children, youth, and women on the importance of clean water, they’re part of local partnerships, and scalable projects for future growth. You can easily donate by going on their web page: www.ryanswell.ca, and clicking the DONATE NOW button, where you can enter the amount you would like to contribute.

Nicaragua Water Wells

As you can probably tell from its name, the Nicaragua Water Well project has a mission to bring clean water and proper sanitation to the people of Nicaragua. The site, which can be found at www.tulsarotaryweb.com/Water/water.html, gives you a background on the foundation and how it came about: in 1996, Rotarian Bob Scroggs went to Nicaragua in efforts to build a medical clinic with his church mission group. He quickly realized the peoples lack of clean water and formed the beginning of an idea that wasn’t put into motion for three more years, when Scroggs talked to a water well driller and they decided to head down to Nicaragua and build wells. Several trips followed this one, including one in 2004 where they drilled 10 wells, providing safe water for 3,300 people, and later in 2005, where they drilled 15 wells and brought clean water to 2,500 Nicaraguans. Though I can’t find a donation page, I can tell that the mean and women involved in this project are very motivated and are slowly but surely making a change, and the website gives good ideas on how to help with the worlds growing water crisis.

World Concern

After Googling “clean water wells”, World concern was one of the first sites to pop up and I was able to find it at www.worldconcern.org/water. This organization, like many other clean water/well based organizations has a primary goal of fulfilling basic human needs and supplying people with clean drinking water. By digging fresh water wells by machine and hand, building rainwater runoff storage systems (systems that transport water from rooftops to larger tanks), and excavating ponds to collect rainwater (which benefit humans and animals), World concern is able to help out developing countries by giving them what every person needs: safe water. The website is big, clear, and full of information and ways to help, including a DONATE NOW page, that allows you to invest a certain amount of money in the building of wells monthly or one time. This foundation would definitely be something to look farther into for our well building project!