Clean and Safe Drinking Water
One of our emphases at Bless the Children Foundation is to make sure that the villages and the villagers have safe and clean drinking water system. We realize that many of the diseases affecting those children come from drinking contaminated water. Before the hand water pump in this picture was installed, all the villagers got their drinking water from the same creek where they washed their clothes and cleaned some other filths. They used the water from the creek for many purposes including drinking, washing clothes, bathing, cooking and doing other things.
Children washing clothes in the creek
In this and other creeks, there are very many water snails that are hosts to certain kinds of parasites called SCHISTOSOME. These parasites cause a disease that is referred to as schistosomiasis.
The schistosome lives in the body of the water snail, and some go swimming free in the water where it will find human skin and penetrate it; now it has found a place to live. When people walk in the water or step in the creek to cross the creek and go on the other side of the creek or wash their clothes in the water, or drink the water, the schistosome goes into their body and lives there.
Schistosome, a Parasite in the water that gives you a serious disease called Schistosomiasis
This is a photo of a schistosome. Schistosomiasis is a very serious disease. When the schistosome lays eggs, they clog the blood vessels, causing sweling and tissue decay in the lungs, liver, spleen or the intestines. One way to detect that someone has schistosomiasis, is that the sick person will urinate with blood in the urine. When the sick person with this disease urinates in the water, the illness is spread around to anyone who drinks that water or steps in that water.
The creek is not only for washing clothes or getting drinking water, this is where the children also come to take their bath and swim. They use the creek to fish, children, boys, girls women and men, all of them come to fish during the summer time. Those with schistosomiasis disease contiminate the water when they urinate in the water.
In a lot of cases, people sometimes do not go too far from the creek to use the space as a latrine or toilet. Those with the schistosomiasis disease, when they toilet near the creek, the rain washes the defecare or feces directly into the creek. The villagers come and take the water home and drink it.
This is how most of the children, men and women in the villages are sick from drinking water from the creek or walking in the creek. Below are photos of sick children who are affected from drinking contaminated water.
Bless The Children Foundation’s Dreams
It is a fervent dream of the foundation that within a short time, we will be able to minimize or completely eradicate the diseases that affect our people from drinking contaminated water. If we can find help from donors from anywhere who will be willings to help us purchase enough hand water pump to be installed in the different quarters in the various villages and towns in those communities, I am sure, within a few years, schistosomiasis will be completely eradicated from those communities and our people will have clean and safe water to drink.