When Marty Hatala, a member of the Rotary Club of Boaz, Alabama first traveled to Ghana in 2010 to volunteer at a local orphanage, she saw how local communities struggled to find clean water.

According to UNICEF, 5 million Ghanaians use water from unsafe sources leaving a significant part of the country’s population susceptible to a range of diseases. Worldwide, one out of every five deaths among those under the age of 5 is caused by water-related diseases.

Hatala’s experiences in Ghana led to a series of joint projects. For their first two projects, members installed two water wells in Aflao, a town in the Volta region. And more recently, they joined forces with two other Alabama clubs to provide clean water, but also to significantly reduce the time and effort that go into finding and fetching water.

“People in this area would normally walk a minimum of 2 to 7 miles looking for water, depending on when the last rain was,” Hatala says. “Water not only gives them a chance for life but saves hours and hours for mothers and their children every day.”

Frank Belote is a member of Washington Noon Rotary. The club meets Mondays at noon at King Chicken. For more information, visit washingtonnoonrotary.org.