St Bees Triers is organising another inspiring fund-raising event on 13th/14th March 2015. The aim of the challenge is to show up the difficulties experienced in under-developed countries with water supply and to raise money for Comic Relief and Water Aid. It is usual for villagers in such countries to have to walk a mile or more to fetch drinking water so over that 24 hours, starting at noon on the 13th, it is hoped to collect the drinking water requirements of the whole of St Bees village.
The water will be collected from either where Pow beck or Rottington beck meet the sea and will be carried a mile back to St Bees School. The total amount of water to be collected is 5400 litres which is 3 litres for each of the 1800 residents of the village, so we would like everybody to help in the challenge. We expect some of the Triers to put in significant personal efforts, but would hope that a large number of people might do one “lap” carrying perhaps a couple of litres of water to make the challenge achievable.
The event is timed around Comic Relief, but we’ll be splitting our fund-raising between Comic Relief and Water Aid, since Water Aid is the international charity that transforms lives by improving access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation.
If you don’t feel up to the physical challenge, but would still like to be involved, we’d also like people to get sponsored for their household attempting to only use the amount of water in 24 hours, that they’d use if they were living in a developing country, i.e. 20 litres per person!
If you’d like to get involved in either aspect, we’d love to hear from you! We will be making direct contact with many of the groups in the community, asking them to galvanise their members to participate in this village challenge. Please contact us via email: thegreatstbeeswaterchallenge@gmail.com or search Facebook for The Great St Bees Water Challenge, where you can sign up for the event!
