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Water Interns Live Like Locals

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Interns sent into developing countries to introduce and implement BioSand Water filters often settle in remote, impoverished communities and spend months living with local people. For a recent Canadian intern, Karen Dyck, it was the experience of a lifetime.

“I made wonderful friendships and was welcomed into the community in a way I never would have imagined,” says Dyck.

Dyck, along with another water intern, moved into a similar small wood-and-clay hut as the rest of their neighbors in a rural community in Kenya’s Kwale district. Like other women in the community, Dyck and her fellow intern wore traditional wrap skirts as they worked, and like many of their neighbors, learned to raise chickens.

“We also learned from some of the local women how to cook Kenyan food,” Dyck says.

According to John Clayton, Samaritan’s Purse Canada Projects Director, when interns live as the locals do, they gain a better understanding of the joys and challenges faced by the people they are serving. It also gives the interns greater credibility in the community, and enables them to build stronger personal relationships, he adds.

Good Health and Community

Samaritan’s Purse has helped build and install more than 104,000 BioSand Water Filters around the world, and has plans for thousands more. The filters are simple to build and maintain, and involve components that are long-lasting and generally available. This makes the filters inexpensive, durable and sustainable.

The filters are ideal when people’s only source of drinking water is what they skim from creeks, ponds and/or ditches. This “surface” water is usually contaminated, leaving people at risk of deadly diarrhea, dysentery, cholera, or other maladies. Filtering water through a BioSand Water Filter reduces contaminants that cause these diseases, and the community experiences a healthier, better quality of life that comes with drinking safe water.

“My entire understanding of how to do responsible development has been expanded through this internship,” said Dyck, who was nearing completion of her doctorate in water infrastructure history when she applied and was accepted for the internship.

Profound Impact

The interns teach local people how to build, install and maintain filters, as well as another important part of the household water filter program: health and hygiene education.

“There’s not much point in having clean water if you still have dirty hands,” said Dyck. “You just contaminate the water all over again.”

Dyck helped educate the community on the importance of proper hygiene – including using latrines and consistently washing hands before touching food or drink. These interactions, as well as spending most of her spare time getting to know her neighbors, helped Dyck build life-altering relationships.

“The (community) profoundly impacted my life. While the people expressed their gratitude (for our help) repeatedly. . . I am finding myself blessed in an equal or in greater measures.”

Ways You Can Help
Pray Please pray that God will continue to provide direction to Samaritan’s Purse, as we respond to people’s needs, share the love of Christ, and serve the church worldwide.		Give The need is urgent. A child is dying every 20 seconds in the developing world from diarrhoeal diseases caused by polluted water. Donate Here.