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About

The Beginning

The Water Team started out in 1992 with a membership of two. We had a foster child named Shamiso with World Vision in Zimbabwe who wrote and told us they had a drought and the animals were dying – we arranged for a well to be drilled in her village and saw the amazing transformation of the village after they got clean water.

Everyone became healthy, the animals thrived and gave milk and meat, there was enough water for a vegetable garden so the villager’s level of nutrition improved and there were extra vegetables so Shamiso’s mother, Elizabeth, started a farmer’s market and started bringing in extra income. The next 9 years were spent researching different organizations that built water wells, and funding bore holes, water containment systems, pipe lines and holding tanks.
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Growth

In 2001, World Vision held a fun run in Vancouver and we formed a running team – called The Water Team. There were 15 of us on the team and we raised enough money to build a water well in Mozambique. In 2002 the team ran again in the World Vision Fun Run and we raised the money to build a water well in Nicaragua. In 2003, World Vision decided not to sponsor the fun run any more and The Water Team decided that we didn’t need to run, we could just remain a team and keep donating money to this important cause.

We discovered a great organization called Lifewater Canada, completely run by volunteers, that wins the award for low overhead and maximum amount of money going to the building of water wells. Over the last three years the team has grown to 63 people and this year we built ten water wells in Liberia and Nigeria and there’s still money coming in.