Water is Life: How Your Donations Revive Communities Across the World
This gallery contains 21 images
Since 1993, Muslim Hands has been working globally to provide impoverished communities with access to clean water and sanitation. Your support has allowed us to complete thousands of water projects, from tube wells to community wells to water filtration plants, and we have so far provided over 2.6 million people with safe water.
Allah (swt) says in the Qur'an, 'By means of water, we give life to everything' (Qur'an, 21:30). Time and again, we have witnessed the way a single well can bring an entire community back to life, improving health, livelihoods, education, agriculture and even the simplest of household tasks.
With last week being World Water Week, with the theme of 'Water for Society - Including All', we've put together a gallery showcasing just a few of the ways your donations have transformed lives across the world.
In Niamakoro, Mali, a borehole built only a year ago has already made a huge difference to an impoverished community. Before the well was built, the community was forced to drink unsafe water, and many of the children were constantly ill and missing school. Tragically, 115 people die from waterborne diseases every hour in Africa.
Alhamdulillah, a group of donors funded the construction of a large borehole with six water points to provide water for over 1,000 families, transforming the life of every single child living in Niamakoro. People from neighbouring villages are even collecting water from this well! Hundreds of children are now able to attend school and gather the skills they need to break the cycle of poverty.
Speaking of putting children in school, many of our water wells are constructed in village centres such as schools, ensuring students have continual access to clean water. Above, children in Mali enjoy a refreshing glass of water in our School of Excellence, while a boy in our Sudan school uses the water you provided to make wudu.
In the Rohingya camps in Bangladesh, there are water shortages during the dry season and refugees suffer from waterborne diseases during the monsoon season - therefore, there is an urgent need for clean water to be provided to them. Your donations have helped us construct deep water wells and women-friendly latrines in Cox's Bazar, improving health and hygiene for refugees.
Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, with only 23% of the population having access to clean water. We've been working in Afghanistan for years to remedy this. Ma sha' Allah, in 2017, an incredibly generous donor pledged a staggering one million pounds to provide clean water to Afghanistan in our largest water project yet. The project is expected to be completed by 2025.
In Niger, water-related diseases and poor hygiene and sanitation practices are one of the leading causes of death in children under five, with only 56% of the population having access to clean drinking water. Your generosity is helping us build large boreholes and wells in water-scarce regions.
Already one of the most water-scarce countries in the world, the destruction of so much of Yemen's infrastructure has left a massive 16 million people without access to safe water and sanitation. Tragically, this has led to deadly cholera outbreaks, especially among children. Your wells are helping us provide urgently needed water to Yemen during this humanitarian crisis.
As mentioned before, one of the amazing things about water is that it's not just used for drinking and household purposes; it can literally bring the land back to life, and reviving agriculture and livestock farming can make a huge difference to the local economy and living standards. Our water projects in Malawi, pictured above, are doing just that.
Water pollution is a major problem in countries like Pakistan, causing diseases such as cholera, typhoid, dysentery and kidney failure. Simply boiling or using a household carbon filter is not enough to purify the water. Our water filtration plants remove undesirable chemicals, biological contaminants and suspended solids and gases from water, ensuring it is fit for human consumption.
Due to the arid landscape in Sudan, we construct wells which reach 80 metres into the ground to extract clean water. A single well will last approximately 30 years, and will be maintained using donations to our Safe Water Fund. Before the well pictured above was built, villagers had to walk over an hour to access water; now, almost 3,000 people use the well, and the activity around it is non-stop.
We've discussed the large-scale projects you've helped us construct, but we also carry out many smaller, more affordable projects such as digging tube wells. Since 1993, we have constructed over 14,000 tube wells. Each one is used daily by up to four families and is often conveniently located between a cluster of houses. Pictured above, our team of experts constructs one such well in Bangladesh.
On behalf of Muslim Hands, we would like to day a big thank you for all of your support over the years. The water projects you donate have continuously transform lives and often prevent illness and death, and we are immensely grateful for your generosity.
Millions of people still don't have access to water, and we need your help to ensure everyone is provided with the basic human right. Give water now to benefit impoverished communities for generations to come.
Established in 1993, Muslim Hands is an aid agency and NGO helping those affected by poverty, conflict and natural disaster in over 20 countries worldwide.
