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New York Parish, CRS Bring Life-Giving Water to Ethiopians By RON LAJOIE Drilling rigs are not commonly found among the assets of Catholic archdioceses in the United States. The Ethiopian Catholic Secretariat, the umbrella organization for all the archdioceses in Ethiopia, now boasts three. But then 95 percent of the water entering American homes goes straight down the drain. In Ethiopia drilling to gain access to pure water is a matter of life and death. Water is at the heart of an ambitious project by the Ethiopian Catholic Secretariat in cooperation with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) to create a sustainable environment for human development in Ethiopia, one of the oldest, driest and poorest countries on earth. The 2009 United Nations Human Development Index said 58 percent of Ethiopia's 78 million people have no access to an "improved water source." In rural areas, less than 15 percent have access to clean water. "Water affects everything," explained Jerry Stanton, CRS Northeast major gifts officer who has seen the water project first-hand. "It affects health, one of the reasons children become malnourished is because they drink dirty water which gives them diarrhea. It affects income, because if there is irrigation available farmers can perhaps raise an extra crop. It affects education, because if there is water, children, who do a lion's share of the water-gathering...do not have to spend three and four hours a day, sometimes more, gathering water." The water and sanitation project accesses water three ways: by digging terraced stonewall wells where the water table is high enough, building spring extensions that tap underground springs close to the surface, and drilling far below the earth's crust, sometimes to 450 meters to find it. CRS purchases the rigs, brings them in and donates them to the Ethiopian Catholic Secretariat. (Catholics number less than one percent of the Ethiopian population.) The work is done at the diocesan level. The $1.8 million needed to buy the rigs, each costs approximately $600,000 including spare parts, was raised primarily through donations from the New York metropolitan region over the past four years. St. Ignatius Loyola parish on Manhattan's upper East Side was particularly active in the fund drive. On Oct. 26 Stanton visited the parish along with Bishop Woldetensae Ghebreghiorghis, O.F.M. Cap., of Harar, Ethiopia; Zemede Abebe, Hararghe Catholic Secretariat program director, and Bekele Moges Kidane, deputy director, to thank the parish personally and to give an update on the project's progress. So far the partnership has dug more than 400 wells, created 220 spring extensions and drilled 70 boreholes. One borehole can potentially serve up to 6,000 households. "These rigs are good for about 100,000 people a year over their 20-year lifespan," Stanton noted. "Two of the machines are brand new. One of the machines is three years old and that's already provided water for 250,000 people. But 50 million people have no clean water in Ethiopia. We're trying to chip away at that." The cost is surprisingly inexpensive. CRS/Ethiopia's entire water program expenditures this year totaled $2.5 million including operational costs for the rigs as well as "software" costs for community training and education that emphasizes the sound ecological use of the precious resource: the importance of building separate pit latrines and utilizing specifically designated faucets for personal bathing and clothes washing. Ecologically friendly irrigation techniques are also taught. "This is radically life-changing, not just for individual families. But for the society," Bishop Ghebreghiorghis said. "You see the trees, the crops born. We have a special case where we drilled a well 300 meters and now that well has gathering around it 16 villages. Before they were scattered, migrating to other places. Now they are established. We have schools we have a road and we have practically another society, evolved and renewed. In Ethiopia access to water is the first step to development." Tim Croak, an investment banker and long-time St. Ignatius parishioner, has been a major benefactor and a devoted volunteer for the water project. In April 2008 he traveled with Stanton and two other New Yorkers to Ethiopia to see what their efforts from afar had wrought. "We spent about six, seven days and the visit consisted of going out to the eastern part of the country and to villages that just received water for the first time. They would have been drinking dirty water from a fetid pond and then the taps would come on with pure clean water, one for their animals, one for washing and one for cooking. These drills, these giant rigs have made a huge difference," Croak said. "It's remarkable how such little money can do so much, and for a long, long time. Because once the water is turned on, it's there. It's transformative to see this." | |