With a Well, There is a Way: Making a Difference

Before CWEF chose the rural village as a project site, the villagers spent 90 minutes every day hauling buckets of water from the water source to their homes. Rarely washing their hands and only bathing twice a year were a way of life and a reality to living in rural Yunnan.

CWEF, in partnership with the local Poverty Alleviation Office, recognized the need of fresh water in the village and implemented a water system last year. The system brought fresh water to the doorstep of the 41 households in the village, but most importantly it also provided water to the local middle and elementary schools. The 320 students in the middle school and 240 students in elementary school now benefit daily from the work of CWEF.

Last week my service team traveled to the same village to further our development work in the elementary school. Although the schools now had water, there was no place for the students to wash their hands. The goal of our service project was to build sinks at the local elementary school. Mixing concrete, pouring concrete slabs, and hauling and laying bricks filled our work days. It was hard work, but it was completed with a smile, knowing how many children would benefit from the sinks.

Laying cement

Our time in the village involved much more than just physical labor. We taught three English lessons at the local elementary school, hiked to the water source, picked tea leaves for the local farmers, and learned the villagers’ minority dances around a bonfire the last night.

Teaching an English lesson on fruit

Rolling tea leaves

We also researched how our water project impacted daily life by conducting interviews with village families. As we interviewed one woman, her face lit up as she told us that the CWEF water project changed her life. She is seventy years-old and was forced to haul water every day. She said she would never be able to thank us for helping her. Another family also gushed with appreciation to CWEF saying that the water system had saved them from many effects of the Yunnan drought. The woman said she didn’t want to think about how much they would have suffered from the drought if CWEF hadn’t implemented a water system.

A village woman we interviewed

It is evident that the water system and the sinks my service team built at the elementary school have greatly affected the villagers. How encouraging to know that the two separate weeks of work we did in the village have produced daily benefits for the villagers.