Thursday, September 29, 2011

Why a Rig? (Update from Scott Harrison)

I just watched the live stream Q &A with Scott Harrison and I’m even more excited than I was before. Seriously guys, this year’s campaign is awesome.

Scott really wanted to help the fundraisers (ie: me and the other 600 people with campaigns like mine) understand why the September Campaign this year is funding a rig instead of wells. And this is really exciting stuff.

(As of September 28th, the campaign as a whole is at 37% of its goal at $444,347. Help us reach our goal, check out my charity: water page! http://mycharitywater.org/changeisgood)

Who gets the rig?
REST – the Relief Society of Tigray – has been working with charity: water for over 4 years digging wells. As it happens, they’ve been supplying some capital needs for REST all along, just nothing as big or as expensive as a rig. Just things like this:

image

(Click on the image to read all about REST, and the work that charity: water is doing with them in Tigray.) So far, charity: water has funded 300 wells in Northern Ethiopia (specifically the region of Tigray). Scott has personally visited over 150 of these wells and certified that the work being done by REST is really top notch. But there is a backlog of work to be done because they can’t move fast enough to use all the money that charity: water fundraisers have raised. (That’s a nice problem to have, eh?)

Why Tigray?
So tonight Scott was saying that Tigray is a really perfect place for water projects because the need there is so acute (only about 50% of people have access to water right now – but two years ago that number was only 30%!). It’s also a great place to drill because they’re drilling through rock – the perfect substance to drill through. They have a 95% success rate with well drilling projects. (Holy Cow!) So if the need is there and the water is there and the only thing keeping people from getting to the water is the lack of a well, then that should be pretty easy to solve right?

Enter the Rig
Right now, REST has 3 rigs running drilling 80 wells a year each. They have mechanics to fix them (who quite literally live with the rigs to keep them functioning), staff to run them, and hydrologists out in the field finding locations to drill. With this new rig they’ll be able to drill an additional 80 wells a year – each reaching between 150-300 people. You can see how the numbers add up pretty quickly. Estimates say that each new rig charity: water buys for REST will reach over 20,000 people a year with clean water.

And that’s why we’re doing what we’re doing. Any questions? GO watch the video for yourself and get just as excited as I am.

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