Before our Clean Water Initiative brought new wells to the Bono region of Ghana, thousands of residents in villages across the area walked treacherous miles in search of unreliable, and oftentimes contaminated, water sources. Today, their lives are less burdensome—and their health has improved—thanks to the generosity of our many friends.

Located in the dry savannah region of Ghana’s northern territory, rural Bono is a largely agricultural region that modernization has left behind. Many residents rely on small-scale farming to make a living, but poor infrastructure and equipment mean they rarely rise above the level of subsistence farming. Their day-to-day existence is incredibly difficult to start with—and their lack of local, clean water sources makes things even harder.

“When it’s available, farmers and their families use seasonal streams for their everyday drinking, cooking and bathing needs,” explains Father Gus Baek, director of Salesian Missions. “Unfortunately, not only are these streams unreliable, but they’re also contaminated by the livestock and grazing animals who share it. And the health and economic implications are impossible to understate.”

When farmers and their families get sick from communicable, water-borne illnesses, they lose precious time … time working in the fields, time spent raising their children, time their children spend in school. This very quickly leads to a cycle of poverty that becomes impossible to break.

“Access to clean, safe drinking water can help break that cycle,” says Fr. Gus. “But only when that water is locally available.”

Why? Because having to spend hours every day searching for and collecting clean water inevitably leads to the same results as getting sick from a contaminated source—lost time, lost income, lost potential. That’s why projects funded through our Clean Water Initiative are so transformative. And that’s how more than 5,000 people across seven villages in Ghana have finally vanquished years of illness and searching for water.

Thanks to the support of our generous friends, residents in some of the poorest, most forgotten villages in Ghana now have their own clean water wells and associated equipment, including submersible pumps, pipes and storage tanks.

Leticia, who lives in one of these villages, observed as her new community well was tested after being installed. “This has been our dream and we have been praying about it,” she says. “It is really difficult to find drinking water here when the stream dries. Sometimes we have to go to a community more than four miles away, only to have to walk back through the hills and valleys all over again. I am very happy. We are all happy!”

Here at Salesian Missions, we’re happy too—and grateful for your many acts of kindness that makes stories like this possible.

Our mission brings safe, local water sources to poor communities around the world. What’s your mission?

Learn more about our work in Ghana.