Can you imagine not having a safe and reliable supply of drinking water for you or your family?
This is the reality for many of our brothers and sisters in most rural communities in Ghana.
Millions of people here are without access to clean water. An estimated three-quarters of households in this West African country are at risk of drinking water that has been contaminated with animal waste due to humans and animals drinking from the same stagnant water source.
People often have no other option but to drink dirty and potentially contaminated water
This includes impoverished Christians in Ghana’s Muslim-majority northern regions.
“The need for safe drinking water in northern Ghana is a desperate one,” says Barnabas Aid’s West African project officer.
“Many in these communities suffer infections and other illnesses,” he adds. “The situation is especially bad in the dry season, when the lack of safe water causes an outbreak of skin diseases such as scabies.”
Discrimination and disease
These northern regions have suffered from many years of underinvestment and neglect.
Boreholes for wells have been funded by donations from the wealthy Muslim-majority countries of the Arabian peninsula, but Christians are excluded from these developments or else expected to convert to Islam in exchange for access to water.
Boreholes will provide clean and safe water for Christian villages in Ghana. Can you help?
Christians often suffer discrimination from some within the Muslim majority as well as followers of African Traditional Religion.
Women are at particular risk, as they are the ones who usually have the responsibility of making the long and difficult journey to find water while their husbands are working. Many have to walk up to seven miles to find a bucket of clean water.
Children are the most susceptible to water-borne diseases. The danger is increased by a desperate shortage of healthcare facilities.
“A cup of cold water”
Barnabas Aid project partners have developed plans to drill boreholes and supply clean and safe water in 24 Christian villages in northern Ghana.
Some of these are among the most impoverished and deprived communities in the northern parts of the country.
The Lord Jesus said that anyone who gives “even a cup of cold water” to one of His children will be blessed (Matthew 10:42).
Can you provide the life-giving gift of water today?
How you can help
To site and drill a borehole for one Christian village in northern Ghana, the total cost is £1,280 ($1,536; €1,400). To provide boreholes and supply clean and safe water in all 24 villages, can you help us meet the target of £30,720 ($36,864; €33,600)?
£12.80 One hundred gifts of £12.80 ($15.36; €14) could cover the cost of siting and drilling a borehole for one Christian village.
