[author image= “http://echo.snu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Colton-Hadlock.jpg”] Colton Hadlock, Staff Contributor
Colton Hadlock is a sophomore at Southern Nazarene University. In his free time, Colton enjoys spending time with family and friends, riding mountain bikes off of bridges into ponds, playing musical instruments, being an unprofessional storm chaser and photographer. His favorite pastime is attempting to eat at every restaurant in Oklahoma. Colton has aspirations of becoming a weather journalist, a filmmaker and a musician. [/author]
The Water4 house among others in support will be traveling to Africa this May to bring supplies needed to build a water well for a village in Kenya. This experience will allow some of the students of the Water4 house to experience first hand a village getting access to clean water for the first time.
The group going looks to first and foremost empower the locals in Kenya to be the solution to the water crisis. What the guys are going to do is encourage and support the local drilling team in their efforts to install a water well. With the help of the TAK drillers, Water4’s on the ground partner in Kenya, the boys from the Water4 house intend on digging at least one if not two water wells, which will result in clean water for years to come for the people of the particular region.
The TAK Water Company is a Kenya-based water well drilling company that also focuses on providing education to at risk youth, and does game park tours to generate revenue for the water well drilling side of their work. The Water4 team going will have the privilege of staying with TAK during their time there. TAK has been providing two major social needs for Kenyans since 2012, which are jobs and income for young Kenyans and water for majority poor communities that lack water. The major thing TAK eliminates is they reduce the time that women have to spend fetching water. This results in more learning time for women, and hopefully a better quality education for school children since water is nearby.
The team will also have the opportunity to spend time with kids at the Maisha Project’s Orphanage. While there, the Water4 guys will get to see first hand the benefits Water4 has been able to provide through them getting clean water. Maisha has been able to initiate projects to address the needs of water, hunger, shelter, education, health and economic security.
The Water4 house with the help of many has been able to raise $5,649 in start-up capital for a Kenyan water well drilling team. The result of SNU’s Water4 team going and delivering the tools firsthand will also cut the costs significantly. The alternative would be shipping the tools, which requires more funds and time. If you would like to donate and support Water4, you can go to water4.org or contact Water4 House Leader Joshua Sanders at jsanders@mail.snu.edu.