A bit of perspective

Imagine for a moment…

Its 1pm and you’re a twelve year old sitting in school. As you listen to the teacher, you wipe the sweat from your forehead. Its about 90°F outside, but inside the walls of the sparse, concrete school building, the temperature is intensified. In the small, crowded room, you’re surrounded by 25 other students feeling equally cramped and oppressed by the heat. Suddenly, that ever-so-familiar feeling surfaces: you have to use the bathroom. Now.

You ask to be excused, and you walk out of the school building. You wander half a mile down the dirt road and duck into the cover of a nearby bush a few feet off the path. Upon completion of your business, you walk back and into the heat of the school.

When you return home at the end of the day, you’re thirsty from the heat and the long walk. You look into the jerrycan of water your mother drew from the well that morning, when she had to walk 3 miles each way carrying the jerrycan. Inside, there’s enough dirty water for one small drink, and your mother needs as much as she can get to make the family’s meal that evening.

This scenario is typical of an average child in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. For over half of the children in the country, clean water and adequate latrines are not available. These children face danger each day from ingesting contaminated water and exposure to disease from the lack of sanitation resources. The result is at least 1 out of every 5 children suffers from chronic diarrhea and other preventable, life-threatening diseases.

These are the lives that we hope to impact through Wheels4Water. We partner with Lifewater International, a respected and proven organization that is helping to fight the global water crisis in the most vulnerable parts of the world. Because of the financial and social support of people around the world, with each mile we ride we’re able to give one child, just like the one described above, clean water and adequate sanitation resources for LIFE. This year, we will ride 450 miles and provide a school in the DROC the clean water and sanitation resources to serve 450 children.

Help us to go the extra mile. $40 per mile = 1 child gets clean water and
sanitation FOR LIFE.