HUNTSVILLE | The University of Alabama in Huntsville Student-Athlete Advisory Committee recently learned that its multi-year work in partnership with Neverthirst has led to a well being established in rural India for a community that was in need of a clean water supply.
 
The well has been established in UAH's honor in the village of Parhadpur which is in the Jharkhand state in northeast India.
 
UAH's SAAC group selected Neverthirst in 2018-19 as its main cause of the year and came together to raise $3,000 for Neverthirst's well building project.
 
"As the SAAC sponsor, I am so proud of this group of student-athletes," said UAH Senior Woman Administrator and SAAC Adviser Laura Taube. "(2018-19 SAAC President) Ryan McRae got the ball rolling with Neverthirst and by his peer leadership was able to keep us on task to raise the money we needed to see this project through."
 
Fundraising efforts related to the project have continued this year under the direction of current SAAC President Aryn Sanders, helping Neverthirst also provide filters for the well.
 
"This group should be proud of how they have helped this community in India," Taube said.
 
The well has already had proven to be a life-changing source of water as documented in this impact statement provided by Neverthirst from village resident Rupiya Devi.
 
"My name is Rupiya Devi. My husband's name is Purle Murmu. We have two sons and two daughters. My husband does some menial jobs for daily wages and we sometimes do agriculture also. Our village is situated in a remote place away from the city. We are tribal people and are not much educated. Our village is less developed and is economically poor.
 
We collect water from an open well. This well is 500 meters away from my house. During summer days, when this well dries up, we used to try to collect water from the hand pump installed in a school but as they did not allow us, we had to walk around two kilometers and collect water from the river.
 
My daughter, when she was four years old, while playing near the well, she fell into the well and when I looked into the well to fetch water, I found her dead inside. I was shocked and I fainted. It was very heartbreaking for me to lose my daughter. This well had no proper fencing around because of which my daughter fell inside and died. If my daughter was alive she would have been 16 years now. Even today the well is in the same condition and we drink the water from the same well. I often remember her, especially while fetching water.
 
Many people felt sorry for this loss and though we wanted to have a hand pump installed, we did not have the money to do it. We have appealed to the local leaders often but one helped us.
 
I am truly grateful to Neverthirst for installing a new hand pump for us. This was something we could not afford and no one else came forward to do this for us. I am glad today that we have a safe and better water source from where we can collect water easily. This water is sweet and good to drink. I thank the donors for contributing towards providing us this hand pump. This help means a lot to us."
 
Neverthirst is a 501c3 located in Birmingham, Alabama, who works to bring clean and living water to more than 785,000,000 individuals who still do not have safe water to drink. Currently, they are providing clean water solutions to the countries of India, Nepal, Cambodia, Myanmar, Uganda, Dem. Rep. of Congo, and Chad. Since 2008, Neverthirst has been able to serve over 707,000 people through the completion of more than 17,000 projects. Learn more about how you can be a part of ending the world water crisis by visiting neverthirstwater.org.