It’s a new year and a new life for families you’ve helped around the world. For many of us here at home, New Year’s Day is a time for setting resolutions, like eating healthier, exercising, or finding a new job; but for many families in the developing world, like Ana’s, it’s a new life.
This time last year, Ana, a mother of four boys and five girls, would wake early and walk many kilometers to the river to fetch water that often gave her and her family health problems like diarrhea and skin infections.
This year, on New Year’s Day, Ana and her family woke up to a new life. “Now, early in the morning, we just turn on the tap and we have clean water,” says Ana.
Water, it seems like such a simple thing and often taken for granted; but it’s everything to Ana and her family. They now have clean drinking water, right at their door.
They wake up feeling healthy because they’re not plagued by bacteria from the river water. They clean their clothes regularly, something that used to be an immense task given how far away the river was. They bathe daily in clean water.
Ana’s children used to spend most of their days helping fetch water, but now they “are very happy because they go to school clean, with their hair neat, and with more time to do their homework, play, and care for our animals,” states Ana.
With her extra time, Ana now makes traditional blouses called Huipils, creating a welcome source of income that further allows her to support her children and feed their livestock.
The gift of water made all of this possible. Ana’s story is just one of hundreds of thousands from 2013 that were made possible by donors who support HOPE International Development Agency.
Thank you, once again, for giving so many families a new life as they entered 2014.
