July 21, 2011
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From the field: We hit water in Moale!

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You may have followed our Live Drill during last year’s September Campaign. On charity: water’s fourth anniversary, we tried to drill for clean water in a remote village called Moale, deep in the forest of Central African Republic.

We did not hit water.

But we did promise Moale we’d be back.

Yesterday, we drilled in Moale again… and this time… watch the video!

See all the videos from the September Campaign 2010 Live Drill here >

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  • Guest

    Drilling one well for this African village entailed five failed attempts, hundreds of man hours and thousands of dollars – I can’t help but wonder who is going to perform the inevitable repairs and how these villagers are going to afford the electricity required to pump water up 250ft.

    How does charity: water address these issues? How do you assess and help ensure the long term success of these projects? How many of the people you provided water to in the CAR will still have access to water in a year, 5 years, 10 years? How many will revert back to their former water sources when the wells you drilled stop working or go dry?

    • http://www.charitywater.org/blog charity: water

      Hi —  thanks for your questions, they’re great.

      Right now, Moale is using a foot pump, but since the well reaches 250 feet, they have to use two people to pump water from it. We’re looking into installing a better crank pump soon. Neither of these pumps will need electricity, though.

      For the regular maintenance work, ICDI, our local partner, has trained mobile teams. They’re equipped with parts and tools on their trucks and travel to each village every four months to perform regular maintenance on the village wells.   Each village pays $8 per month and ICDI handles any minor or major repairs for the life of the pump. Routine maintenance can keep a project functioning for quite some time; ICDI has some pumps that have lasted more than 15 years.

      Please let us know if you have more questions!

  • http://best-water-filter.net/ Nick W

    In response to the recent “Guest” comment…. at least the organization is striving to do the right thing. There may be some set backs along the way, but the eventual successes will make it all worth it.

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  • Anonymous

    Very cool video. The organization is certainly striving to do the right thing. I completely agree.

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