Water Blogged

Our implementing partner, DigDeep, submitted this update on the support H2O for Life helped provide for Navajo Nation during the 2020-2021 school year:

We are grateful for H2O for Life’s interest in the work of DigDeep. It is our pleasure to share information about the water storage tanks funded by H2O for Life on the Navajo Nation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Navajo Nation was hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, facing some of the highest infection rates in the United States. As DigDeep’s Executive Director of the Navajo Water Project, Emma Robbins, shared, “Losing anyone is horrific, but many of these people are our elders, the keepers of our culture, our traditions, and our language. Because of their passing, we have lost libraries of wisdom that we will never get back.” Luckily, many elders have now received the vaccine, and healthcare providers are working around the clock to make sure that they contain the spread, protect the most vulnerable, and care for those who are sick.

DigDeep’s Navajo Water Project has continued to do our part by delivering clean drinking water to more than 1000 families across AZ, NM and UT. (That’s more than 700 additional families than this time last year!). And because of your support, we were able to distribute more 275-gallon storage tanks to Covid-positive and high-risk households in remote areas. Thanks to you and others like you, more than 1400 families gained access to clean water and were able to wash their hands at their homes!

– DigDeep installed 1455 water storage tanks to provide safe water for drinking and hand-washing in the short term. 70 of these 275-gallon water storage tanks were provided by H2O for Life!

– DigDeep filled and will continue to fill each of the installed water storage tanks until larger Home Water Systems can be installed inside homes.

– The water storage tanks serve as an excellent first step to installing a full Home Water System, since it has a portion of the components needed for these larger piped-in systems.

– DigDeep can now build off of all the water storage tanks that were installed during the pandemic since each of those installations paves the way for the installation of a full Home Water Systems. That work is planned to begin in fall 2021.

– Because of you, 70 families have water storage at their homes that they didn’t have prior!

Thanks to so many of our schools for supporting this work!