image from bloodwatermission.comto promote clean blood (by reducing the impact of HIV/AIDS) and clean water in Africa
"You can't go without hearing wailing because someone probably just passed away. ... Yet despite the suffering, the hospitality and the joy is so tangible and so challenging." (Jars of Clay's Steve Mason to Christian Music Today, on his visit to Africa)
The equation is simple: one dollar equals one year of clean water for one person in Africa. But Blood:Water Mission, founded by the members of Jars of Clay, is about more than throwing paychecks at poverty; it's about altering worldviews, building relationships and doing so in a context of hope for health and human rights.
"One of the reasons we started Blood:Water was to engage college students on these issues of what's going on in Africa regarding poverty and diseases," says Jars of Clay frontman Dan Haseltine in another interview, "just helping them make choices that reflect that their education can be used to enter the suffering of the world to really make a difference."
While the focus of Blood:Water Mission is on Africa, lack of access to clean water is an international crisis. About 20% of the global population does not have access to safe drinking water, and some walk miles each day just to reach what they can. UNICEF reports that unsafe drinking water kills about 4,500 children per day and led to 2.2 million deaths in 2004 alone (compare to about four hundred thousand killed in the genocide in Darfur).
Along with South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa is among the most afflicted regions of the world in terms of the water crisis. Blood:Water Mission's current goal is to build 1,000 wells in communities around Africa. The organization emphasizes geographically appropriate sanitation solutions, as well as training the community to maintain and sustain the wells, so that they may continually best serve the population.
Your role in this story of hope can start with that dollar, but by no means should it end there. Blood:Water's mission is not to take from the privileged and give to the poor, but to connect people of vastly different experiences who have the same basic needs, to educate on both ends. In Haseltine's words:
"A huge body of water has kept us apart from Africa, but water is also the very thing that can connect us."
To act, visit bloodwatermission.com