Nigeria Water Project
Awhum Nigeria 2017
 
A few years ago Fr Felix, who was helping out for the summer at our local church in Wyckoff, brought to our attention a dream that he had nurtured from a very young age.  Fr Felix and many children in his village had to walk many miles to the river to carry back water to his home - and had to do it before going to school early in the morning.  He wanted to provide clean water to his village to improve health, allow children to focus more on their education and to ease the daily lives of the people in the village.
 
As a club, we were very moved and were determined to help make his dream come true.  We assembled a small group of our members to lead the initiative by working with Rotary International, a local water non-profit run by Brian Murray and a local Nigerian Rotary club to make this dream a reality.
 
In the summer of 2017 the dream became a reality.  As a club this is one of the most impactful projects we have been involved in as we bring fresh water to a village of close to 10,000 people for the first time.
 
Fr Felix makes his first presentation to us in 2015. He also describes growing up and having to fetch the water before school
 
 
The video below shows the storage tanks and the water flowing for happy villagers.  This video was made for Water for the Global Community - one of our partners in the project.
 
 
 
 
Phase 1 of the project is complete. The bore hole of 700 feed deep is pumping water, the tanks to hold 6,000 gallons are installed, the water purifier is in place. Phase 2 is now coming close to being funded. We are acquiring a generator for $10,000 which will mean that we no longer have to rent a generator to fill the tanks every 2-3 weeks.
 
This is already a project that is very close to our hearts and we will be even happier when this final phase is complete.
 
Fr Felix receives Checks from local clubs for the generator and thanks Rotarians for helping with the initiative at one of our weekly meetings:

We need more people to help us with life changing projects such as this one. Please join us any Thursday morning at 7:30am at The Brick House in Wyckoff to learn more.