Water for Life provides clean drinking water for Haiti - A Foundation supported project
Roy Sheldrick and other members of the Rotary Club of Ancaster, Ontario, Canada, have spent 15 years helping to provide clean drinking water for 300,000 people in the Artibonite Valley of Haiti. A year after a massive earthquake crippled the country, followed by a deadly cholera outbreak, their work in the region is more important than ever.
Sheldrick and his wife, Norma, founded Water for Life after taking part in a service trip to Haiti with their church in 1996. The nonprofit organization, supported by the Ancaster club and District 7090 (parts of Canada and New York, USA), drills wells to provide clean and accessible water in Haiti. To date, the project has raised more than US$1.5 million for 219 wells. It has also helped construct more than 350 latrines.
Since 1998, the Ancaster club and its Haitian partners have been awarded Rotary Foundation humanitarian grants totaling $672,093 for well and latrine projects. The grants have helped the program become more sustainable.
"With the leveraged contributions from the Foundation, Water for Life has expanded to do more work for the communities, including teaching Haitians how to maintain the wells," says Sheldrick. "We trained plumbers and created all kinds of jobs. Water takes them out of poverty."