A Drop of Water: Growing Hope Through Ubuntu and the Ideal of Keeping Others Alive

This article was written about the importance of touching the lives of people who need clean drinking water, in the spirit of Ubuntu and the ideal of keeping others alive. Thank you to every volunteer.

29 March 20256 min read

This article was written about the importance of touching the lives of people who need clean drinking water, in the spirit of Ubuntu and the ideal of keeping others alive. Thank you to every volunteer.

world water day poster, a child drinking from a tap

world water day poster, a child drinking from cupped hands

World Water Day, declared by the United Nations in 1993, is marked every year on 22 March to draw attention to the importance of water and to put the world’s water problems on the agenda so that solutions can be found. Today 2.2 billion people around the world have difficulty getting clean drinking water, and that has serious consequences for health, for the economy and for social life. To overcome the global water crisis we can act, and carry out our responsibilities towards humanity around universal human values, in the spirit of keeping others alive.

In the Ubuntu idea, sometimes called African humanism, the phrase “a person is a person through other people” asks us to put ourselves in another’s place, and when we do, we understand people in need far better. In today’s world, pollution and climate change have brought drought and heatwaves to water sources, and reaching clean drinking water has become harder. Groundwater, stored in rock and soil from rainfall, forms the most important water source in the countryside. People in rural areas mostly take their drinking water from surface sources such as ponds, rivers and pools. These sources are usually watering places for livestock, or basins formed by waste running downhill from latrines and by landslide debris. The water in these basins leads to life threatening illnesses such as diarrhoea, cholera, malaria, dysentery and hepatitis. More than 70 per cent of illnesses are caused directly by the lack of clean drinking water or by inadequate sanitation and hygiene.

That 2.2 billion people worldwide cannot reach clean drinking water is not merely a statistic. It reflects a reality in which millions of children struggle with illness, families find it hard to get through the day, and hopes surrender to drought. But changing that picture is within our hands.

a volunteer inspecting a site beside the water

Humanitarian organisations are trying to answer this problem by drilling water wells. But the effort grows not through financial support alone; it grows when volunteers join hands to do good. And this is exactly where empathy and Ubuntu come in. Empathy is feeling another person’s pain and wanting to respond to it. When we put ourselves in the place of a child who cannot reach water, we feel within us the hardship that thirst brings. The Ubuntu idea, known as African humanism, stands for the understanding that “I am because we are”. It shows how great a change becomes possible when humanity acts in solidarity. With a single drop of water you can change lives. Supporting the drilling of a well as a volunteer is not simply technical help: it is giving hope to a community. It is being the reason for a child’s smile, and for a mother raising her family in safety. The “ideal of keeping others alive” encourages us to look out for other people’s needs, to be of use to humanity and to work for the wellbeing of society. It asks people to take responsibility not only for themselves but for others living a better life too.

Access to clean drinking water is one of the most basic rights there is. That millions of people are deprived of it calls on everyone with a conscience to act.

Around universal human values, in line with the principles of mutual help, solidarity and sacrifice, volunteers can make this ideal concrete by taking part in well drilling projects. Taking as our guide the words of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, “The best of people are those who are of most benefit to others” (Bukhari, Maghazi, 35), supporting a person’s struggle against thirst, making their life easier and improving the wellbeing of a community is one of the greatest services one can render. This effort is not merely technical help; it is an expression of love for humanity and of a sense of responsibility.

Sacrifice can draw volunteers towards clean water projects. In that spirit, whatever their faith, culture or outlook, the people around us can be helped to join projects of goodness for those in the world who need clean drinking water.

We can do Ubuntu with the ideal of keeping others alive by taking part in projects as volunteers, by raising awareness so that more people join, and by giving both material and moral support to donation campaigns.
As the philosophy of Ubuntu puts it, “we exist only through one another”. A single clean glass of water drunk by one person contributes to the healthy future of a whole community.

Joining well drilling work as part of a movement of goodness is not just giving aid. It is giving voice to the shared conscience of humanity.

Young activists, join the movement for good: with a drop of water you can support a life.

students and project volunteers gathered in a school yard

Wherever in the world we are, we can invite friends of different faiths and cultures around us to do Ubuntu in this globalising world. With that in mind, together with the humanitarian organisation Time to Help operating in Germany, 50 boreholes were drilled in 2023 in the grounds of schools in Uganda that had no clean drinking water, bringing clean water to those in need. (1)

a group walking through london streets carrying water containers

participants making their way along the street on the walk4water march

Volunteers from the humanitarian organisation Time to Help in the United Kingdom organise a walk in London to draw attention to the drinking water problem in African countries and to drill a well. In the walk, called “Walk4Water”, a group of around 40 people covers 6 km carrying 10 litre water containers, putting themselves in the place of people in Africa trying to reach clean drinking water. (2)

I thank all the volunteer activists and donors behind these efforts, and I offer my gratitude on behalf of humanity. May God be pleased with them.

Today, with the means of communication we have, thinking locally and acting globally lets us make goodness glocal. With that in mind, on World Water Day, 22 March 2025, we did Ubuntu for people who need clean drinking water through a broadcast with Bold Media and the Time to Help association in Germany.

Kuyudan Çıkan Yusuflar: Yürekleri Isıtacak Yardım Eli. · Bold Plus

My thanks to everyone who worked on the broadcast, titled “Kuyudan Çıkan Yusuflar: Yürekleri Isıtacak Yardım Eli” (The Josephs Who Came Out of the Well: A Helping Hand to Warm the Heart). Watch it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hsm9YrxMgI4, and with a drop of water you can bring a life back to green. You can be part of this good work too.