Thirst Relief

The plaque is your opportunity to personalise the well you have built for the poor and in need. Whatever you choose to put on your plaque will be there for everyone to see whenever they use the well to draw fresh, clean and potentially life-saving water. The plaque must be 50 characters or less and you could put the well in your name or the name of a loved one, or even in the memory of a loved one as part of their legacy. Some people choose to build a well in the name of The Prophet (ﷺ) and his family or use a short Hadith. If you are building a well on behalf of your business you could put the name of your organisation on the plaque. It is your chance to make the life-changing donation your own.

Each well benefits a huge number of people over its lifetime. Think about how often you use water each day – to drink, to shower, to wash clothes, to cook, to clean and for other daily activities – your well will be used by several families or whole villages doing all those things and more every day for years to come. It’s a lot of benefit for something so simple! Reliable access to clean, safe water is life-changing as it means that people in the countries that need it most have less chance of developing serious diseases like diarrhoea which to us doesn’t seem life threatening, but can be catastrophic for a remote and poor village. It also reduces the risk of the spread of cholera, which is a fatal contagious disease caused by contaminated water.  

Once we receive your full payment, we’ll begin the process of building your well. This can take up to 12 months, depending on the location. There are many careful steps involved like choosing the right site, sourcing materials, construction, plaque installation, and making sure the water is safe. After that, our teams take photos and send everything back to us so we can share it with you. Many of the areas we work in are remote and can be affected by things like floods, conflict, or limited infrastructure, which can cause delays. That said, we’re deeply committed to keeping things moving and giving you your feedback as soon as we can. Thank you for your patience and for making such a life-changing difference.

Wells are installed according to where there is the greatest need for clean, safe water. Penny Appeal’s teams on the ground carefully select the location for each well based on their knowledge of the community and the geological survey they commission to ensure there is an adequate water source below the ground. This ensures that your donation has the widest effect possible; making sure it benefits the largest number of people or in the remotest village where it is needed most.  

The average lifespan of a Thirst Relief well is 10 years. Communities value their water pumps very highly and take great care to look after them. However, there are variables that cannot be predicted. For example, floods in Pakistan destroyed thousands of wells and contaminated water tables. Many locations needed wells reinstalling and many hand pumps were destroyed and had to be replaced. Before we install a well we always make sure that the community can take responsibility for maintenance and security – this is not usually a problem as they are keen to take ownership and ensure they have reliable access to clean water for many years. However, it is of course impossible for us to predict such things as natural disasters and how these well affect our wells.