Supply Clean Water to a School in Tanzania

Provide a lifetime of clean water by helping fund a simple, innovative rainwater collection system for a school in Africa!

Although we may not see it on a daily basis, the earth's supply of clean water is decreasing rapidly. The water tables are falling in scores of countries (including Northern China, the U.S., and India) owing to widespread overpumping of aquifers using powerful diesel and electric pumps. Most of the 3 billion people projected to be added to the worldwide population by mid-century will be born in countries already experiencing water shortages. Tragically, waterborne diseases and the absence of sanitary domestic water are one of the leading causes of death worldwide, yet expensive water-treatment plants and infrastructure are not practical solutions for extremely impoverished places lacking sewers and electricity.

What if, instead of installing expensive electric pumps to extract the limited underground supply of fresh water, people could collect and clean rainwater? What if such a catchment and filtration system could be built easily by locals in the most rural areas using cheap, abundant local materials?

Not only is it possible to collect rainwater and use it as a safe, clean source of water, it is already happening, and it is changing lives.

The nonprofit organization Save the Rain teaches water-starved communities to use the rain as a sustainable water supply. Save the Rain's water catchment systems are already being used in several villages in Tanzania and Uganda, with such success that they are increasing and expanding their work to more and more villages. The rain catchment systems are built with local materials, by the local work force, ensuring that they are repairable by the communities themselves. Rain is caught in both roof and surface collection systems, and filtered with a Slow Sand Filtration system -- a filtration system that requires no electricity, chemicals, cartridges or moving parts. With a rain catchment and filtration system in place, even the most rural, impoverished areas can now capture clean water from Nature's own faucet -- the sky above -- preventing the waterborne diseases that kill thousands of people around the world every day.

You can help. This Gift That Gives More™ supplies clean water to a school in Africa by helping fund a ferro-cement rainwater catchment system and a Slow Sand Filtration system through Save the Rain. Your donation of $15.00 provides a lifetime of clean water for a villager.