A glass of clean water shouldn’t be a miracle.
Every morning, Amahle walks barefoot to a river in Mozambique. The water she carries home is thick with mud. But it’s the only option. Thousands of miles away, Gregorio boils water before school, hoping it’s enough to keep his siblings healthy. Laila, a young girl in Nandyal, India, waits patiently in line for her turn at the only public water well in her rural village.
We don’t usually think about water. We just turn on the tap. But for children like Amahle and Laila, water is the line between life and loss. Contaminated water is a leading cause of death among children under the age of five years old!
Our Franciscan friars are improving access to clean water:
- In Mozambique, Father Neto is ready to drill a well and build a clean water system for over 1,000 villagers. He only needs $6,600 to make it happen.
- In the Philippines, Father Daniel has raised $4,300 locally—but still needs $13,781 to finish a water system for thousands of people in the Cotabato region.
- In Nandyal, India, where Laila lives, Father Madhu Reddy, OFM only needs $5,500 to drill a well and install a pumping station for this community that depends on agriculture for its survival.
Children at our Franciscan school for orphans in Benin, Africa, wash their hands with clean water.
A child fills water pails at a community tap.
A child bringing water home from a dirty river.
Children fill water containers at a community tap.
Our missionaries have held too many children whose lives could have been saved—if only the water had been clean.
In places like India, where children like Laila grow up in farming communities, the water is often laced with chemicals that harm their growing bodies and cloud their developing minds. It costs so little to make it right. But it means everything.
Please share your blessings once again with our Franciscan missionaries so they can provide safe, clean drinking water to people who are desperate for it.
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