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Water For Africa

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Ashete Bekele, her husband and their four children are like everyone else in their farming village of Filtino, about an hour’s drive from Ethiopia’s capital of Addis Ababa. They must gather their water from a narrow grass-bordered canal through which hundreds of cattle regularly wander – and defecate.

Their drinking water – some of the most polluted-looking in all of Africa – used to force residents to fight one diarrheal disease after another. Adults were often too sick to work their fields or care for their kids. Children were too sick to go to school.

Polluted water was stealing the village’s health, productivity, and future – just as it is in communities all around the world.

Then Calgary -invented technology – BioSand Water Filters – transformed the lives of the people in Filtino.

Samaritan’s Purse Canada and its Ethiopian church partner arrived here in 1999 with an offer to begin working with community members to build and install the filters – and ensuring their long-term effectiveness by also providing related health and hygiene training.

Some residents were skeptical, but not Ashete. The woman whose youthful smile belies her 45 years of diligently scratching out a living on a small patch of sun-baked ground was the first person in her community to ask for a BioSand Filter for her household.

“I was convinced after the demonstration,” Ashete said. “Previously we were often sick with typhoid and dysentery. Now that’s gone.”

In the time since Ashete and her family acquired their filter, hundreds of other families in Filtino have also received filters – and experienced huge improvements in their health.

“All the years we were taking this muddy water for drinking, we were sick,” says Ashete’s 52-year-old neighbour Abebe Gelata. “Without these filters, people were dying.”

Many would have died during droughts that have plagued this and several other regions of Ethiopia for three consecutive years, Ashete says: “Especially this year, the water is very bad. Without our filter, we would be dead.”

Ways You Can Help
Pray Please pray that God would continue to work through Samaritan’s Purse as we help provide people with safe water.		Give Help Turn on the Tap to clean water in places like Ethiopia. Donate Here.