Reigate Melody Campaigns For Clean Water In Africa

An art illustrator who grew up in Reigate is fundraising and campaigning for clean water to be supplied to some of the poorest communities in Africa. Having seen the poverty and lack of basic supplies on her gap year, this former Surrey student is determined to make a difference on the continent.

Melody Ball, 24, who grew up in Reigate is a campaigner and trustee member of the charity, WellWater which works to bring clean, safe drinking water to disadvantaged communities in Africa. Growing up, Melody heard stories from her parents who were missionaries for
Youth With A Mission, which included accounts of poverty from around the world.

Now living and working in London, Melody who was born in Taiwan to a British father and Taiwanese mother, but moved to the UK at the age of seven, recalls: “At the dinner table whenever one of us – my two younger brothers or I didn’t finish all of our rice dinner, our father would reprimand gently ‘There are children in Africa who do not have any food to eat. Be grateful for what you have.’”

When sitting her A levels in 2012, Melody did not get the grades she needed for medical school, so decided to take a gap year whilst studying for her resit exams. At this time, St Mary’s Church in Reigate announced its annual trip to Burundi and sought people for its 2013 trip as part of a relationship between St Mary’s Church in Reigate and a church in Gitega in the East African country.

Melody alongside volunteers from Reigate were able to build clinics, street homes for the street children and contribute to pig farming projects, visiting locations where poverty was extreme. She says that in some communities there was no plumbing or water or toilets in sight and children as young as toddlers were seen drinking from beer cans because that was the safer option than water.

Speaking about the visit six years ago, Melody says: “There were four of us in the student category, we spent most of our time with the street children, getting to know their names and their stories alongside teaching them games and sharing songs. The purpose of the street homes was to bring children in found on the streets without a home for protection as well as rebuilding relationships.”

Melody says that access to clean water is the foundation of a country, she says: “The lack of water is an often insurmountable obstacle to helping oneself. You can’t grow food, you can’t  build housing, you can’t stay healthy, you can’t stay in school and you can’t keep working. Without clean water, the possibility of breaking out of the cycle of poverty is slim.’

“By 2025, an estimated 1.8 billion people will live in areas plagued by water scarcity, with two-thirds of the world’s population living in water-stressed regions. Poverty can be the result of political instability, ethnic conflicts, climate change and other man-made causes.”

Building Wells & Changing Lives

For more information about WellWater and to donate to the charity’s ongoing fundraising,
visit: www.wellwater.life, or visit the charity’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/wellwater.life