Water Tank Construction
Water is life! In many developing nations the access to clean drinking
water is difficult or non-existent. Vanuatu is no exception. If you were to
travel just a half-hour drive from the capital, Port Vila, you would discover
that 'town water and electricity' is not commonly available in villages in this
area. The situation is even worse in the remaining eighty-odd islands.
Some villages have access to mountain springs while others rely on storing precious
rain water. Communities on some of the smaller coastal islands often have
to paddle in dug-out canoes to the mainland to fetch water on a daily basis.
Through the generous donations of churches and short-term missions teams we have been able to commence a program of building concrete water tanks in some of the villages in need. The people of the villages have expressed their sincere thanks to the teams that have come and invested in the livelihood of these communities. It only takes approximately 100,000 Vatu (approx US$1000, or AUD$1300) for the materials to build a tank approximately 2.5m x 2.5m x 1.8m in size and takes about 2 weeks to complete. So it is a great short-term missions project that could be taken on by a small church or youth group team.
Since January 2005, nine water tanks have been built in the northern villages of Efate. This has been made possible by the generous donation and hard work of the following: Mt Louisa House of Praise, The Rock Church and Mortley/Oatdale Baptist Church in Australia. Also, King's Kids Australia, YWAM Adelaide, YWAM Sunshine Coast, YWAM Brisbane from YWAM Australia. Also YWAM Denver and YWAM Honolulu from YWAM USA.
We have an invitation to over 300 more villages, so why not consider bringing a small team or making a donation to funding a water tank for a needy village in Vanuatu.
