Living Water in Malawi

aheckman — Fri, 04 Nov 2022 04:05:28 +0000

Living Water in Malawi aheckman Fri, 11/04/2022 - 04:05

NOVEMBER 4, 2022 · AMY HECKMAN

When Angela became pregnant at age 16, her life changed dramatically. The baby’s father denied he was responsible, and her parents refused to help her. She was unable to finish high school and graduate. “My parents could not accept me because I disappointed them while I was still in school,” Angela explains. Finding herself parenting alone without an education, Angela struggled to know how to provide for her son. She began to think of small ways to earn income and settled upon farming as one possible method.

However, growing food to eat and sell requires clean and reliable water. In Salima, Malawi, where Angela and her son live, there was no easily accessible clean water source. Some families dug their own wells but most lacked adequate shelters for the wells to prevent objects from contaminating the water. These open water sources were also breeding grounds for mosquitos, which led to elevated levels of malaria in the community. If people didn’t try to dig a well at home, they would travel to a nearby town to a water source that wasn’t reliably clean. That travel took precious time out of the day and often women and girls were the ones tasked with fetching water—leaving them less time to study or work.

Salima Church of the Nazarene wanted to send a signal to the community that their congregation was serious about cultivating relationships with their neighbors and working to improve their health. In partnership with Nazarene Compassionate Ministries Malawi, the church spearheaded a borehole well (a type of well that pulls up deep, clean groundwater from far below the surface) project that brought clean water to their property. Additionally, the project incorporated training for church and community members in WASH (clean water, sanitation, and hygiene) principles. In total, 30 women and 12 men went through trainings to ensure a large number of people knew how to manage and repair the well.

A nearby medical clinic tracked the impact of the well on community health. Incredibly, once the water source was open and being used, visits from sick people in Salima dropped by 83 percent, illustrating a dramatic decrease in waterborne illnesses.

Angela saw a change in her daily life once clean water was easily available to her and her son. “With the provision of this water well in our village, I have started growing vegetables and onions in small garden near my house,” she shared. “I always come early in the morning to fetch water.”

Angela is on a path to overcoming some of the difficulties she’s faced and is hopeful for a continually improving future. “I look forward to harvest time as I plan to sell to our local market. I [hope] to buy my own goat from the vegetables I sell. I thank Church of the Nazarene for the water well.”

Mwetheya, a member of the Salima church, sums up the impact of the well this way, saying, “This is a new church in our community with its own challenges as well. But they moved to provide the needs of the community. This helps us know that our hope should be in God alone. This borehole [well] symbolizes that Jesus of the Nazareth is the living water.”

Clean Water

Water

An Integrated Health Initiative yields Healthy Solutions in Liberia

aheckman — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 20:44:21 +0000

An Integrated Health Initiative yields Healthy Solutions in Liberia aheckman Thu, 04/28/2022 - 20:44

An Integrated Health Initiative yields Healthy Solutions in Liberia

APRIL 28, 2022 · CHET BUSH

Marie Tutu of Liberia had no way of knowing that the way she arranged the dishes in her kitchen would have a direct impact on her children’s health. She, also, could not have known that vectors of disease linked bacteria from the community to her home no matter how clean she kept her family’s living space. When health alliance workers representing the Integrated Health Initiative of Nazarene Compassionate Ministries came to her community in Gompa, Marie learned about strategies for wellness that could protect her family and promote the health of her six children. Now, Marie says she stacks her clean dishes upside down and covers them with linen to protect against insect and airborne disease.

Though this change seems simple, the practice is connected to a broader system of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) solutions that position families in Gompa, Liberia, and beyond, to live longer and healthier lives. NCM’s Integrated Health Initiative promotes these health solutions by facilitating partnerships between clinical and community health services in five countries in Africa: Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, and Zambia. As an expression of the ministry of Jesus, this initiative works through local churches to strengthen existing health networks, thereby equipping members of the community to drive the solutions for public health, themselves.

Health volunteers

Marie’s kitchen organization, therefore, fits within a broader system that works to establish and protect clean water sources, build sanitary latrine facilities, clear play areas for children, and develop the terrain for safe water drainage. That simple act of protecting her dinnerware protects Marie and her family from bacteria spread through contaminated drinking water, open defecation, stagnant wet spaces, and overgrown play areas, all aspects over which she may not have immediate control. As more and more households employ the alliance’s solutions, however, WASH methods systematically challenge the spread of infection and disease. And residents have embraced a core value in the mission of the Integrated Health Initiative: by focusing on children and mothers' health, these innovative methods yield positive results for the entire community.

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Living Water in Malawi

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An Integrated Health Initiative yields Healthy Solutions in Liberia

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