Sierra Leone Project     First crew from the UK returns from the Pujehun Sierra Leone

Sponsors page

`At this rate of drilling , it will take a thousand years to provide clean water to all parts of Africa'

Alive and Well's 1st Dando 2000

Registered Charity Number

1130059

Registered Address:

Meadow's Edge

High Street

Stoney Stratton

Somerset

BA4 6DY

Drill rig - Dedeghan, Sierra Leone Nov 2010

This website was created FOC by Alive & Well

The charity Alive and Well started in 2009 and dedicated to taking practical direct action, to moving as quickly as possible to alleviate suffering in Sierra Leone. We will raise funds to buy drilling equipment, ship everything there, and send a team to sink the first phase of bore-holes. This will immediately start to transform communities and save lives. 100% of our funds go to drilling wells, training local crews and supporting them. This is a practical physical solution to getting clean water to people who desperately need it. in 2009 we said: `The aim is to avoid bureaucracy and raise funds as quickly as possible so that within 12 months the first team can start sinking bore-holes'. We overshot by a few months but project begins 24th October 2010

More about our purpose...

What we are doing?

Since January 2009 when we started Alive and Well we have been fundraising and finding sponsors for our project. We have Raised œ40,000 and are now only œ2/3,000 short of our target for our Sierra Leone project. Since we started we have:

• Raised funds to buy a Dando 2000 drilling rig, 7m long and 2 tons in weight
• Been sponsored to buy a Landrover 110 HiCap pickup and upgraded the vehicle
• Raised the cost of shipping the rig and Landrover by sea-container to Freetown
• Been sponsored to build and support a workshop to fabricate the rope pumps designed by Senesi (our representative in Sierra Leone)
• Found a sponsor for the test drillings we will undertake in the UK before we go
• Pursuing sponsors for the tools and equipment needed to maintain the Landrover

What are we asking for?

Our fundraising efforts do not stop now just because we have paid for our first project. On the contrary we now have a different set of objectives to meet and hurdles to overcome.

Our next hurdle is to raise the funds to advertise in a Sunday broadsheet magazine to generate new groups who want an adventure with a purpose, to save lives adventurously.  We hope to attract groups of friends or colleagues that want to undertake a challenge and make a difference to the world...   (if you like how that idea sounds then send us an email at water@dowding.co.uk)

The Local Crew will be funded to drill wells for the poorest villages and communities, those that cannot afford to pay for the drilling. How? We are going to enter an agreement with them that if they deliver a schedule of wells to the communities in the are then we will pay them a wage at the end of each month. In this way the drilling is subsidised to benefit the poorest most disenfranchised.

Longevity and continuity is vital to ensure that the equipment delivers  water wells in the the most efficient way. This means continuity in the crew and we want to ensure that everything we send out to them is in good working order and branded so that the crew feels part of the charity and not just working for one. We will offer a welfare fund to support their families if they or their family members become ill. We hope that Alive and Well will achieve the goal of delivering practical help, by providing water, in the right way, with integrity and openness.

If you feel you can help us then please make a donation on our donations page or email Paul Dowding at water@dowding.co.uk

If you would like to help there are many ways in which you can: