A Guatemalan farmer will use a rock to hammer in a fence post.
“He just doesn’t have the tools to do the job,” said Ben Obdeyn of Pelham, a Wells of Hope volunteer.
The retired construction company owner knows thousands of unused tools are in garages, basements, sheds and tool boxes across Niagara.
“Many of us have tools we don’t use, some inherited from our fathers and grandfathers,” he said.
He asks for donations to drop into a shipping container Wells of Hope will send to Guatemala in the next few weeks.
It is looking for claw hammers, pliers, saws, wire clippers, rip saws, spades and other garden tools.
These basic items are in demand in the poor mountain villages of Guatemala.
“But any types of tools are welcome,” Obdeyn said.
Wells of Hope, a Niagara-based charity, began 10 years ago to drill water wells in the rugged mountains of Guatemala. Poor farming communities there rely on often polluted streams for their water. Women and children walk kilometres to collect the water and bring it back to their homes.
During the decade, Wells of Hope has drilled 12 wells, each hundreds of metres deep, and laid pipe to supply fresh, clean water to 53,000 people in the departments (provinces) of Jalapa and Jutiapa.
While it started out as a well drilling operation, the organization soon found more ways to help. It has constructed 15 one and two-room schools, set up a health centre, organized dental clinics with Canadian volunteer dentists, built small homes and designed a practical heating and cooking stove.
“Everything we do is challenging but we preserver to keep it going,” said Obdeyn.
He has made 29 trips of two to six weeks to Guatemala to help with construction and various projects. In Niagara, he organizes fundraisers and donation projects such as the used tools drive.
“We have so much here and they have so little there,” he said about the back mountain areas of Guatemala. People there depend on coffee harvesting and subsistence farming.
Wells of Hope, he said, strives to involve the local community in its work. It turns schools over to it and employs local workers.
“We have learned a lot in 10 years,” Obdeyn said about developing relationships.
The used tool project came out of it. Twice a year Wells of Hope packs a shipping container with supplies for its operations.
The tools will help fills space around contraction items. So will backpacks loaded with school supplies filled by children from around Niagara.
“The right tool will go a long way to making life easier for a farmer on a small plot,” said Obdeyn.
You can contact him at 905-892-4721 or 905-932-3003.
For more information about Wells of Hope see its website: www.wellsofhope.com.
