Yamah is a teenage girl who lives in a remote village in Liberia. Her lifelong dream is to go to school. She’d like to learn a skill so she can earn money to buy more food for her family. With such a large family, there just never seems to be enough for everyone. She’d like to help fix that problem.
Right now, though, Yamah is watching her dream slip slowly away. She’s almost too old for school, and she’s never been able to go because she must spend so much time collecting water for the family. Someone in the family has to make several trips a day to a shallow, hand-dug well that’s almost a quarter of a mile from Yamah’s house. In Yamah’s village, that job has always fallen to the family’s oldest daughter—Yamah.
That means Yamah must walk about 3.7 miles a day just to get enough water for the family to survive. And survive is about all they do. That shallow well is little more than a mud puddle. The water is cloudy and dirty. Someone in Yamah’s family is almost always sick with diarrhea.
Yamah’s story is repeated far too often in developing nations. Millions of young women around the world have to work as hard as she does, walking long distances to haul heavy loads of water that’s just barely clean enough to keep their families alive.
Please help us observe World Water Day on March 22 by joining in the Living Water Challenge to walk for Yamah—to raise money to provide clean water to Yamah’s family, their village, and thousands of other villages around the world. Here’s how you can help:
Walk 3.7 miles for Yamah. Do it your own way— walk, hike, bike or run. Do it at your own pace on your own schedule and in any place you choose. Cover the 3.7 miles all at once or spread it out over several days. All we ask is that you spend the time thinking about the hardships endured by Yamah and praying for her and millions of other people around the world as they walk that far every day just to get enough water to survive.
Donate at least $9 to The Living Water Project. Think in terms of one of these amounts:
• $9 provides water for one person.
• $99 provides water for two families.
• $999 provides a rehabilitated well for one village.
• $9999 provides new wells for two villages.
Share this effort with others. On social media or simply a text thread, share a photo or video of yourself on the 3.7-mile journey and challenge three friends to do the same. If posting on social media, use the hashtag #lwpchallenge2023 so we can follow the progress!
If public participation isn’t your style, that’s okay. We simply and humbly ask that you give. The more money and awareness we can raise, the sooner we can change the lives of people who need clean water.
