Delivery of a Reliable Source of Safe Drinking Water to Two Villages in Ebonyi

Nigeria's water infrastructure is suffering from severe neglect. Rural areas in particular face a decline in services. In urban areas people are forced to buy water from private vendors which most cannot afford. In Nigeria, almost 60,000 children, under the age of 5 yrs. old, die per year  from diarrheal diseases caused by poor water and sanitation.

 The Borehole [Well] at St. Patrick's Church, Uburu Amachi operational since June 2020

At the very outset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria in April 2020 MMCF began construction of a borehole well which reaches a depth of over 300 feet. 

​From MMCF's general funds and the personal fundraising efforts of a retired Peace Core volunteer, Mr. Richard Morten, MMCF completed construction of the well and a storage structure to house the necessary equipment and storage tanks at a cost of about U.S. $8,500.

The borehole provides year round drinking water to all residents of Uburu Amachi but is located on the grounds of St. Patrick's for security concerns to safeguard the water supply and the generator needed to operate the pump.  

At its June 28, 2020 inaugural, Fr. Edward Inyanwachi blesses the completed borehole well and storage structure in the presence of the parishioners of St. Patrick's Uburu Amachi

Boys enjoy the arrival of year round drinking water at St. Patrick's Uburu Amachi

On Christmas Eve 2020 - months into Nigeria's annual dry season - when all the other wells in the village have run dry, parishioners of St. Patrick's Uburu Amachi continue to gather after mass to draw water from the borehole well gifted by MMCF and its supporters. As Fr. Edward Inyanwachi notes this photograph depicts "the scene we have every morning after morning Mass."

The solar panel operated Borehole [Well] at the remote village of Elu Ogo Ibii, Afikpo, operational since September 2022

Prior to the completion of the borehole well, the women of Elu Ogo Ibii had to carry water from a stagnant pond.

Elu Ogo Ibii villagers had been disappointed by past efforts by others to drill a well at the site.  In the Spring and Summer of 2022, despite supply chain issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to drill deeper than originally prescribed by the first geological report, MMCF suceeded in drilling a borehole well at the rural village, Elu Ogo Ibii, in Afiko North, Ebonyi State. 
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MMCF’s co-founder and President, Fr. Edward Inyanwachi, describes Elu Ogo Ibii as a “village . . . located on a hill and is only accessed through the rocks. The people informed me, that prior to the stairway which was provided a few years ago, people had to come down to the valley to get water from stagnant ponds. I am so touched by the suffering of the Ibii community.” 

With billions of people currently lacking access to safe, clean, water, we have and continue to take bold steps toward addressing the root cause of this crisis-or the health and well-being of the entire human race is at risk! In his 2015 Encyclical on the Environment, Laudato Si, Pope Francis reminds us that “access to safe, drinkable water is a basic and universal human right…..and a condition for the exercise of other human rights.”

Fr. Edward turns on the Elu Ogo Ibii faucets for the first time in Fall 2022

In American English the term "commissioned" tranlslates to "inaugurated."

The Inauguration ceremony culminiating in joyous song for the long awaited solar powered borehole well at Elu Ogo Ibii.