Clean Water & Hygiene
Clean Water
Many of our beneficiaries, including most of our children in Haiti and Malawi are infected with intestinal worms. These worms may consume as much as 20% of daily nutritional intake, causing malnutrition. Other symptoms include dehydration and diarrhea which are common effects of waterborne illnesses. In most cases individuals are infected by worms because of the presence of raw sewage, the lack of potable water, and the lack of access to health care. For many children, being dewormed is the difference between life and death. Through our partnership with Aqua Tabs and Water Technologies, we provide clean water tabs and purification technologies to our patients and their families. Over the past 15 plus years the Jack Brewer Foundation and Serving Ministries has helped provide over 5 million gallons of clean water.
Hygiene
Due to conditions of extreme poverty, our washing programs help train rural families and children on washing their bodies. This includes training on menstrual and sexual hygiene, in addition to sanitizing their living spaces. In many of our locations, basic hygiene is not taught and difficult cultural stigmas still exist that create barriers for our educational efforts. The amount of treatable skin infections including scabies, eczema, psoriasis and infected wounds is unimaginable. In addition, we run regular education programs which help train our teachers and beneficiaries the impedance of washing themselves and their children with soap and water. Our hygiene lessons are often run by our full time nurses as well as our doctors and volunteers who join our missions.
Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
John 4:10