Your son is very sick. He’s not eating, and his teacher says he’s falling behind in school. She suggests you take him to the clinic – a 24-mile drive down winding, rutted mountain roads. But you have no vehicle, and even if you did, you don’t really have the money to pay for the visit to the doctor. But you must.
You scrape together the money for the doctor with a loan from your neighbors and arrange a ride to the clinic with your son in the back of a truck laden with coffee beans headed to market.
When you arrive at the clinic, you learn that your son is ridden with parasites. After an inexpensive and straightforward treatment, and soon your son starts feeling better. The nurse at the clinic tells you that your son will only get sick again if he does not have clean, safe water to drink. But the only water you have access to is contaminated.
This is what happened to Sabatiel, a father of two, living in a rural community in Trojes, Honduras near the Nicaraguan boarder. He didn’t know about water contamination or ways to avoid it.
“We just don’t have the understanding to do this by ourselves, or the money to get water filters,” he said. “We don’t even have the money to treat people when they are sick. So at the base of this is poverty. Maybe people here will always be sick. But I hope we can change that.”
Pure Water is working hard to make that change a reality for fathers all over Trojes. We’re educating families so that they understand water contamination and how to avoid it. We offer de-worming treatments, and we’re partnering with communities to install filters that will help ensure that children and their parents do not fall sick from unsafe water again.
Sabatiel was able to help his son and teach him about the necessity of safe water. Help us continue to give fathers and their families the tools necessary to lead healthy, happy lives. Please, honor a father this Father’s Day – so that he too can provide his children with the tools they need to break this cycle of illness for good.