Helping the world, a glass of water a time

 

By Grant LaFleche:

 

In a world beset by an endless parade of troubles, it is easy to think that one person cannot make a difference.

What real impact can a single person, or even a small group of people make when there are places on Earth where people don’t have enough to eat? Where people live on mere pennies a day, and where they don’t have clean drinking water?

If Scott Maxwell chose to look at the world that way, he’d never do anything. On a planet of six billion people, he is but one man.

But he doesn’t see it that way.

“I learned a long time ago that you cannot save everyone. You just can’t. You cannot be everywhere, or help everyone,” said the high school teacher and chair of Wells of Hope, a local charity best known for shipping backpacks of school and hygiene supplies to impoverished communities in Guatemela.

“What you can do is help this person. You can help this village. You can make life a little better for this group of kids,” Maxwell said.

“That isn’t going to change the world, but I think you have to do what you can, where you can.”

Wells of Hope’s primary mission, as its name suggests, is to dig freshwater wells for those communities, improving the lives of thousands of people in the process.

For the past 11 years, Maxwell has helped Wells of Hope provide clean water to people living in poverty in the villages near Jalapa, Guatemala, a community about a three-hour drive from Guatemala City.

The Niagara-on-the-Lake based charity group was founded in 2004 by Ted Vander Zalm. After graduating university, Vander Zalm travelled to Africa to do missionary work.

Part of that work involved digging wells for communities without access to clean water.

“He didn’t have any experience,” Maxwell said.

“They basically handed him his equipment and told him to go dig the wells. He had to learn as he went. He was literally digging some of them by hand.”

After a few years, however, Vander Zalm married and started a family. He returned to Canada and his well-digging days were over.

Or so he thought.

Maxwell said Vander Zalm gave presentations about the work he did in Africa, and word travelled. Eventually, a woman from Jalapa contacted him, asking Vander Zalm to do for her community what he had done in Africa.

Once Vander Zalm, who is currently in Guatemala working on a wells projects, got a clear picture of the problems in Jalapa, he pulled together some like-minded people to start working on clean water wells in the area.

Maxwell said the first trips to Jalapa were a serious learning experience for the group. They was not using the best equipment, did not have a geologist on staff nor even a clear idea of the flow of underground aquifers.

But they pressed on because the need was great.

Each year, some 2,000 children become sick from waterborne illness in the community, contributing to the area’s high rate of infant mortality.

Many children do not go to school, poverty is rampant, health care is poor and the kind of social safety net enjoyed by Canadians just does not exist.

Women and children, Maxwell said, often have to walk several hours a day to reach a water supply, and there is no guarantee the water isn’t contaminated.

“There are people who are effectively drinking contaminated water every day, but that is the only water they have access to,” said Maxwell.

It did not take the fledgling charity long to understand they were going to have to do more than just dig a few wells and return to Canada.

The long-term health of the wells was key to their success. That meant not just maintaining them, but teaching the local residents to do it.

“We figured out pretty quickly we would be there for at least 10 years,” Maxwell said.

Since those early days, Wells of Hope has acquired better, more effective equipment, dug a dozen wells and installed accompanying infrastructure that now provides clean water to some 50,000 people in Jalapa and the surrounding area.

Soon after Wells of Hope arrived, the people in Jalapa began asking for assistance with other issues.

 

Building or repairing a house. Erecting a school building and improving education. Helping girls at a local orphanage.

“Ted is the kind of person who, if someone comes to him for help, he won’t say no. He’ll say how can we get it done?” Maxwell said.

Alongside the ongoing clean water projects, Wells of Hope ships clothes, hygiene products and even firefighting gear donated by Niagara firefighters to Jalapa.

School groups often visit the area in the spring and assist with building projects, Maxwell said.

He said Wells of Hope wants to eventually expand its reach beyond Guatemala, but will be in Jalapa for several years to come.

 

to read the second article in the series  click here

 

 

On the ground in Guatemala

For most Canadians, access to clean water is as simple as turning on the tap.

For people in some other countries, though, clean water is a luxury that’s hard to come by.

From April 11 to 19, reporter Grant LaFleche will follow the Wells of Hope organization to Jalapa, Guatemala where for the past 11 years volunteers have been working to supply clean water to those who have none. You can also follow LaFleche on Twitter @grantrants and join the conversation using the hashtag #wellsofhope

Join LaFleche and Wells of Hope chairman Scott Maxwell Friday at 4 p.m. for a live chat at www.stcatharinesstandard.ca about the organization, Guatemala and poverty in the Third World.