Clean accessible drinking water is a basic human right, essential to life; yet over one tenth of the world does not have access to safe drinking water. Instead, it is a luxury in many parts of East Africa. Many people suffer sickness and death due to water borne diseases and valuable hours are lost fetching dirty water over long distances. Northern Uganda, where Fields of Life is currently drilling, was ravaged by civil war over a 25 year period resulting in the displacement of an estimated 2 million people and the destruction of what infrastructure was in place such as schools, health clinics and borehole wells. Around the world today it is estimated that 1 in 9 people have no access to safe, clean drinking water. The effects on communities are devastating such as a high rate of infant mortality (1 in 5 children dying before their 5th birthday) and disease such as severe diarrhoea, river blindness, dysentery, cholera and typhoid. The tragedy is that there is plenty of clean water just 50-60 metres beneath the feet of the people who suffer greatly in Uganda. Speaking shortly after arriving home from their trip to Uganda, Richard Moore explains: "Villagers, frequently children, have to carry water in jerry cans for several miles daily, assuming they can get access to a well. In the worst situations, they have no such access and rely on dirty water, with all the inevitable disease consequences. Either way, they are either too busy, too exhausted or too sick to go to school or to improve their own food production. Locate a well in a village and it is no exaggeration to say their life is transformed. The multiplier effect of this investment is huge."

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