“We had no choice, we did it to survive.” – Veronica Makiko
For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in. – Matthew 25:35
Upon completing the grueling three hour walk with her two young sons every morning, Veronica often looked out and saw cattle, goats and pigs bathing in the stream that provided her family with their only source of water. “Sharing drinking water with animals made my children sick with diarrhea. But we had no choice. We did it to survive, ” she said.
When her children were sick because of the dirty water, she would stay with them at the clinic, meaning she could not work in the fields or sell her produce at the market, so she had less income to support her family. And while pregnant with her daughter, she continued carrying the 5-gallon buckets of water every day and worried what would happen if she went into labor.
Talk to Veronica today, and you realize how much has changed for her in just one year: “I’m so glad those stories are from the past. Today, I just walk to the corner of my house to get clean water for family.”
Over 80% of the population in Veronica’s district in the Western Province of Zambia does not have
access to safe water. Today, this dire situation
is changing, thanks to support from devoted people like you that help us in our mission to care for the poor and vulnerable. Over the past two years, CMMB has drilled seven
boreholes in this area of Zambia to provide safe water to underserved communities like Veronica’s,
meaningfamilies are healthier, and more children are surviving.
