Watering Community

Page 1

G lobal Positions Watering Community Deaths from waterborne diseases are commonplace in Nigerian villages, where people often share the same pond with their cows, sheep, and goats. Villages without ponds turn to hand-dug wells, but for every well there is a child who has died trying to fetch water from it. Experts estimate that the provision of clean water alone would cut disease in Nigeria by about 60 percent. In 2008 SelfS u s t a i n i n g Enterprises (SSE) partnered with Vineyard Community Church in Cincinnati to launch H2O Nigeria. The idea behind the project was to saturate targeted areas with clean water by drilling boreholes. Villages desiring a borehole must demonstrate a collective sense of “ownership” of their well by working together to establish a water committee that will be responsible for management of the well. The water committee also serves as the health and hygiene contact group for the village. To date, SSE has built 70 boreholes in Nigeria that serve over 40,000 people. In December 2009, SSE began the first of what they plan to be an annual tradition that is as exciting as the first sight of water from the first borehole– the H2O Nigeria Water Summit. The summit brought together representatives from every village that has a borehole. Representation was diverse– old and young; men and women; Christians, Muslims, and traditionalists. The organizers were stunned! No one could have predicted such diversity in a culture where, typically, only elder men are sent to represent villages. For the summit the villages maintained the all-

6 PRISM Magazine

inclusive participatory approach that enabled them to get the borehole in the first place. A village-wide decision that included the voices of women and young people was a remarkable and life-giving departure from the norm. Another departure was that, instead of featuring degreed outsiders who talked while the villagers took notes, at

this summit it was the villagers who were the experts, had all the experience, and did all the talking–everyone else was a student. This was a multivillage roundtable where all at the table had in common the life-changing experience of receiving a borehole. The discussions at the summit soon revealed the extent to which a single borehole can spark a cycle of hope in a village. They told stories of conflict resolution where Christian villagers and Muslim nomads who used to quarrel over water–sometimes violently–share peacefully now that water is no longer so scarce. Representatives from a predominantly Muslim village expressed shock that they got a borehole without a demand for conversion to Christianity. Similarities emerged in the stories. First, every village was experiencing a decrease in the number of deaths and illnesses. In the case of at least two villages, the local health clinics were struggling to stay open due to lack of patients. This was even more remarkable since the report came from an area that had lost about 300 children

Emmanuel Itapson

just two years earlier because of pollution at the local water source. Second, every village talked about sustained enrollment at the local schools. A woman representing the village of Bunkusa said that because children no longer have to wake up at 3 a.m. to walk four miles to line up for water, fewer students were dropping out of school. Third, most villages were experiencing increased economic activity. Extra time was allowing the villagers, especially women, to spend more time in small trading and farming. By the end of the summit, it was clear that clean, safe drinking water for these villages was only the beginning. A borehole cannot be an end in itself but is only a vehicle by which sustainable kingdom communities can be built from the ground up. With fewer deaths and greater prosperity, these villages will begin to buck some of the age-old traditions that minimize the voices of women who bear the brunt of Africa’s burdens. They will demonstrate the possibilities of peace and reconciliation in a country that periodically convulses from ethnic and religious riots. And the H2O Nigeria Water Summit will continue to bring these communities of hope together, because stories of hope are contagious.

Learn more at SSEinc.org.

Emmanuel Itapson is associate professor of Old Testament at Palmer Theological Seminary outside Philadelphia, Pa. He is co-founder of the Cincinnati-based Self-Sustaining Enterprises, Inc., which operates in Jos, Nigeria, providing ministry to orphans through boarding schools, health facilities, and vocational education.


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.