Ebebiyín, 11 March, 2020 / 12:07 am (ACI Africa).
While 2.2 billion people lack access to safe drinking water globally, Salesian Missions, the U.S. development arm of the Religious Institute of the Salesians of Don Bosco is bridging the gap by helping local communities in the Central African nation of Equatorial Guinea get access to safe drinking water through the “Clean Water Initiative.”
The development agency has drilled a new well and constructed a water tank at Sacred Heart Parish in the Diocese of Ebebiyín, northeast of the country and plans are underway for 17 other water facilities.
“In this remote, impoverished diocese there are a number of parishes where the population lives without safe drinking water,” the Salesian Missions has reported on its website.
With the Clean Water Initiative, the Salesian missionaries hope to alleviate the water crisis, increase sanitation, improve the health of children, and supply clean drinking water by constructing wells and cisterns in 18 rural sites.
Despite the only available water being of poor quality, the residents are unable to purchase mineral water, due to their inability to achieve “more than a subsistence economy” through the dominant economic activities of agriculture and livestock rearing.
