After enduring six years of severe drought in Santa Barbara, we are acutely aware of the importance of abundant, affordable clean water for our homes, schools, farms, and businesses. Imagine spending half your day, every day, walking to the nearest water source — unfiltered and unclean — filling your canisters, and lugging it back to your home. This is the reality for most villagers around Bukoba, a semi-arid region in northwest Tanzania.
For the last 8 years, Alex Haimanis, a Greek-American naturalized citizen, has been leading Mission Tanzania, drilling new water wells in 16 villages around Bukoba. Now 35,000 people have easier access to reliably clean well water. With two trucks, a drilling rig, and a hoist purchased entirely from donated funds, the local crew expects to drill 15 new wells in 2017 at a cost of only $5,000 per well. This is far cheaper than many well-drilling operations run by NGOs using leased equipment.
Mission Tanzania was formed in 2009 by volunteers of Saint Barbara Greek Orthodox Church to improve basic services for the villagers. The first project was a medical mission to Bukoba. In 2010, collaborating with St. Paul Greek Orthodox Church of Irvine, Haimanis and the committee organized and accompanied a team of volunteer doctors and nurses who treated 850 villagers during a two-week clinic. Haimanis returned in 2012 with a second medical team along with $40,000 in donated medications for the newly opened Ufufuo Health Center. This time, the team treated more than 500 patients and created a computerized patient database.