The 146th water tank was constructed in the Myanmar dry zone in September, thanks to funds from the Inverell Sacred Heart Church community to the Living Water Myanmar project.
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The project’s co-founders are Burmese teacher Saya Toe and Inverell’s Rosemary Breen. Rosemary said with the local church’s donations, clean and fresh drinking water is now available to the Shwepyitha village school in Nyaung Oo township.
“It’s incredible to think six years ago it started with one tank, because there was a cyclone in the south,” Rosemary said.
She funded the first tank herself, built in the south after a cyclone drove the sea to contaminate the wells, bores and fields with salt water.
From that first tank, Rosemary learnt of the conditions impoverished Burmese communities where people are forced to drink and use stagnant water from ponds to be stored in open concrete containers.
One hundred and sixty tanks are now on the ground in Myanmar, thanks to the six-year old project which employs local labourers and now plants ten trees to signify new life and aid in environmental sustainability.
“Also, it’s very bare. Some of these (villages) are just dust bowls, so to have trees makes a bit of difference,” Rosemary said.
She left for Myanmar on Tuesday, January 3, to view the 56 new tanks built since she was last there in early 2016. “I visit all the new ones. Which is a huge thing; it’s about five a day, or four, but then I also meet head men or head teachers who are asking for (tanks), and so I go to their villages,” she said.
Extraordinary people have bought them, you’ve no idea.
- Living Water Myanmar co-founder Rosemary Breen
Each situation is assessed to ensure the requesting school or village meets the criteria of need.
The list of tank donors is long, from those who give a little toward a tank, to others, or groups, which fund an entire construction, from memorials to deceased loved ones, to symbols of new lives and relationships.
“Extraordinary people have bought them, you’ve no idea,” Rosemary said. “There’s heaps of wonderful stories connected to this, it’s the history of all kinds of people.”
A Werris Creek farmer heard about Living Water, and made a large donation to build a tank. “He just said, ‘I’ve run out of water but I’ve got money to buy it in’, so he gave $10,000,” Rosemary said.
To learn more about the project, find them on Facebook: Living Water Myanmar.
Michèle Jedlicka
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