Your first stop in the morning is the bathroom whether you shower, brush your teeth, wash your face, etc. To start off right, you boil water for tea or coffee. Meanwhile, your sprinklers are set to water your yard. Throughout the day, you wash your hands (especially during this pandemic) and scrub any dishes in the sink. With a hamper full of dirty clothes, you put in a load of laundry, and a clean car on the street inspires you to head to the car wash.
According to the EPA, if you are part of an average family, you would have spent more than 300 gallons of water in the past 24 hours! It’s hard to believe because many of us live in a country lucky enough to have stable access to sanitary water. The CDC states that ‘85-90% of the American public gets their drinking water from a public water system.’ This water is protected by the EPA under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Thus, most Americans don’t worry about water when all we have to do is turn on the faucet or add a filter we bought at the store. Sadly, our reality is not one shared by everyone.
Thinking about drinking water alone, ‘319 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa are without access to improved reliable drinking water sources’ according to The Water Project. When it comes to water for other services, the instability is astounding. According to Zambians in a study conducted by Kelly and peers, different seasons shift the availability of water; in the rainy season, Zambians can rely on ponds, wells, or reservoirs for water while they are forced to spend more time and money to access water in the dry season. This impacts quality of life and can lead to infections like cholera and diarrhea, which continue to be the leading cause of death of children under the age of five (UNICEF). It is also partly to blame for child stunting, and high-dropout rates as many children have to spend a large amount of their time fetching water, especially women and young girls.
However, it’s not all bleak. Here at Dazzle Africa, with the help of gracious sponsors and our partner, The Bushcamp Company, we are doing our part to help make water more accessible. How? We fund boreholes (water pumps drilled into a water source in the ground). So far, we have funded 16 boreholes in Zambia with 14 being funded by safari guests! Each of these boreholes provide safe, accessible water for up to three decades! This means we can help generations of families live a healthier and more prosperous life.
Inspired to share the gift of clean water? You can join an upcoming safari that helps fund future boreholes or donate to Dazzle Africa and bring accessible, clean water to families in Zambia. This helps thousands of women who would otherwise spend hundreds of hours traveling to the nearest water source and miss out on important parts of their lives as a result. Help is just a click away. The cost of a borehole is $7,000, serves up to 300 people a day, and lasts nearly 30 years.
Priscila Bautista
Dazzle Africa Intern