Precious Water

You may be surprised to learn that Tibet suffers from a severe lack of water. In fact, 95% of its annual rainfall occurs over just two months of the year. Tibetans in remote, rural areas can suffer hugely from a lack of safe, clean water.

At high-altitude, wells are rare and those that exist are poorly maintained. Communities depend largely on streams for water, but these are often contaminated by animals.  In the winter many streams dry up, and housewives or young girls have to walk up to a mile, sometimes 8 times a day, to fetch water. Tenzin Lhunpo, a woman from a village west of Lhasa, says: ‘Water is our main problem. There are only two wells for more than a hundred families, both of which are contaminated.’ 

The Tibet Relief Fund has been supporting a project instigated by the Swiss Red Cross, to install one hand pump in each household of the poorest villages in Sakya County in the Tibet Autonomous Region.  So far we have managed to supply over 100 pumps to families but the need is still great.  Safe drinking water makes a huge difference to a small village. Cases of diarrhoea, which can be fatal, go down. The villagers wash themselves and their children more frequently, with better hygiene also improving health. People are able to plant gardens to grow a greater variety of food. Rather than spending most of the day walking for hours to collect water, women have more time to spend contributing to the effective running of their communities. 

The gift of a water pump will transform the lives of a Tibetan family.
click here to buy a water pump