Help Mudslide Victims in Peru!

On April 7^th, 2017 Water For Life launched a GoFundMe Campaign to help the citizens of Peru endure the massive natural disaster that started around March 15^th 2017. At the time of this article, heavy rains have caused flooding in a number of cities around Lima, Peru destroying lands, structures and lives. Government officials estimate current rebuilding costs could run as high as 9 billion (US). Rebuilding is a major concern for the country but the interim concerns involve critical, lifesaving solutions.

As many of our supporters know, post water natural disasters are often followed by a host of disease, sanitation and a lack of clean water to drink. Damage done by the massive overabundance of water leaves behind a breeding ground for dysentery, giardia, malaria, cholera (most deadly) and many other water-borne diseases.

Water For Life has connected with resources in-country and have developed a plan to deliver 700 water filters and 700 clean buckets to Peru within the next few days. Here are the details of the campaign:

• Dollar Amount Goal = $19,600
• 700 Water Filters @ $20 each = $14,00
• 700 Clean Buckets @ $8.00 each = $5,600
• $28 provides one complete setup
• $2000 shipping (drawing from other WFL funds)

Here is the GoFundMe Campaign link: https://www.gofundme.com/WaterForLife-help-mudslide-victims-in-peru

Because every day counts, we have no choice but to ship the filters via FEDEX or DHL Express. The cost to ship via these shipping lanes is very expensive but very necessary. Filters must be in the hands of our partners in Peru within 4 to 5 days rather than two to three weeks. We have learned shipping costs will exceed $1800 but we have the funds to cover this already. We are currently reaching out to other NGOs to see if they already have other teams going to Peru but we are not expecting timelines to match up.

We know from previous crowd funding campaigns that most of our donations range from between $28 and $100….so this is a big goal, but we need to try!

We are arranging now to ship the first at least 200 filters today, Monday April 10^th 2017, to Peru so our partners can get them to the suffering as soon as possible. As donations are coming in, we will ship another 200+ water filters each week or sooner, hopefully, and wire funds for the buckets.

We hope to have photos and stories back showing our filters / buckets and the children / families now drinking safe water in the upcoming days.

Message from one of our contacts, Hefzi Garu, at a partner organization. Hefzi is a trusted partner who has actually hosted our co-founder Rudy Shaffer while staying in Peru:

Hello Rudy, God bless you my friend! I’m sorry it took me till now to respond. Yes, the news are terrible, these floodings and mudslides happened recently, around the Lima area, up in the north and in the center of Peru. My church and friends helped us collect some water and nonperishable food for these people that lost everything. We went to two areas in Lima and gave them what we had collected, of course it wasn’t enough but it did helped them. We could saw that these people literally lost their houses and they’re living in tents, they have no water and of course the government is trying to help but they’re moving very slowly.

They are going to need our help with everything for months to come…food, tents, hygiene items etc etc.

Please take a few minutes click on the links below so you can fully see how serious this is….

https://www.nbcnews.com/slideshow/floods-mudslides-hit-peru-displacing-tens-thousands-n739846

https://floodlist.com/tag/peru

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/03/peru-suffers-worst-flooding-in-decades/520146/