2013-10-10
People are fetching water every day for the living in drought stricken Gansu Province, China. Like much of West China, Gansu suffers from desertification and an acute shortage of water. It is one of the poorest provinces of China.
The land has no grass and is covered by loess. With almost no groundwater, the inhabitants depend on the small amount of rain that falls between July and September. Better off families built their own water cisterns; primitive ones lasted only three years before the soil made the water dirty. The poor had cisterns and had to walk several hours a day to bring water home from wells, in buckets or on the backs of donkeys. Water is so scarce that some people never take a bath in their entire lives.
Through Grace Charity Foundation, JVSakk has the opportunity to make a donation and build 100 water cellar for the people. This water improves the hygiene of the family and increases the number of livestock they rear. It saves them the hours spent to fetch water, which they can use for other activities and earn a living.
Construction of a cistern costs 1,500 Yuan and can last over 10 years. The system collects water on the roof and the courtyard and runs it through a filtering pound into a bottle shaped cistern for storage. For a family of five, the water collected during the rainy season is enough to sustain them for half a year.
As of the end of 2013, Grace Charity Foundation had built 2800 water cellar to 2800 families, over 12,000 people are benefited.