There are more people in Ethiopia without access to clean water than any other African country. Seventy-five percent of Ethiopia's 70 million people lack access to clean, safe drinking water: that's 52 million men, women and children. Firewood is a very precious commodity in many parts of Ethiopia due in part to low rainfall and deforestation, which is why it is often not possible to boil drinking water.

In Hadiya where Shaya was born, only 6% of its 1.5 million inhabitants have access to electricity and there is very limited access to clean water. If, under different circumstances, Shaya were still there being raised there is a 15% chance that she wouldn't live to her 5th birthday, in large part due to water-borne illnesses. If she did survive past age 5, she likely would spend several hours a day fetching water and it probably would preclude her from attending school (only 18% of kids reach grade 5). It also would expose her to increased rates of abduction and rape. Charlotte Petri Gomitzka of Save The Children has said that Ethiopia is "one of the toughest places to be a child."

Water-borne diseases are rampant among the children of Ethiopia. Shaya's pediatrician at the UW's Center for Adoption Medicine told me that 85% of the Ethiopian adoptees she sees are infected with giardia, tapeworms, and other parasites.

Every day I make a bottle for Shaya with clean, safe, convenient water from one of the four taps in our home (not counting the two in our yard, seriously, how blessed are we??) I should bow down and praise God!! I don't... I don't even think about it... but I should.

Please help us raise money for a well to be built a place in need in the developing world. Charity:water won't let us specify where this well will be built (tax reasons) but they have built numerous wells in southern Ethiopia in the very area that Shaya was born, and there's a good chance this money will go towards another one. Regardless, 100% of the proceeds will go towards clean, safe drinking water for a community in dire need.


THANK YOU!!