LIGHT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WELL: In addition to the work done by Wine toWater, Hendley has seen other water-focused groups emerge over the past several years. “I think there is a light at the end of the tunnel, whereas in the beginning, I was overwhelmed,” he said. “Now, together I think we can fix this one day.”
send him anywhere in the world, and Hendley agreed, with one stipulation: He wanted to be sent to “the worst place that [the man] knew of.” That turned out to be Darfur, Sudan, not long after the start of the ethnic conflict and genocide that eventually would claim an estimated 400,000 lives. For his first couple of weeks in Africa, Hendley was over-
whelmed. But he quickly began to adapt, both to the scorching temperatures and to being one of the few outsiders in an almost entirely Muslim culture. “I just started really enjoying the com- pany of the people and trying to learn their background and just love on them,” he said, “and do what I could to build a relationship with them regardless of differences. I chose to approach it that way, and it really worked out well for me immediately with the guys I started hiring to be on my team.” It was also fortunate that the head of UNICEF’s water pro-
gram in Darfur took Hendley under his wing and taught him much of what he needed to get started. Although Hendley had a bit of money, it wasn’t a lot compared to other, multimillion-
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dollar aid organizations, meaning he had to figure out how to make as great an impact as possible using what little resources he had. To start, he decided that he’d work with people that no one else was serving, such as those inUN“no-go” zones. He also decided to focus on rehabilitating broken wells, which were plentiful in the desert, instead of digging new ones. In many cases, it was just a small, cheap part or two that had failed, costing no more than $100 to fix. This becameWine toWater’s core value: “to do as much as
we can, to have as great an impact as we can, with as little as possible,” Hendley said. He also quickly perceived that the wells he fixed were likely to break again, and took it upon him- self to bring together community leaders, teach them how to fix the wells, and leave them with a tool kit. “And that really started…one of the main missions ofWine toWater,” Hend- ley said. “To bring people water with whatever means neces- sary, but to utilize the locals to do so, so that in the end it becomes a sustainable project.”
Wine toWellspring After Sudan, Hendley and his nascent organization moved on to collaborate with a well-drilling program in Ethiopia, build water filters and facilitate rainwater containment in Uganda, and rehabilitate the water systems of an orphanage and a leper colony in India.Wine toWater has also drilled more than 100 wells in Cambodia, and completed projects in Peru, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti—where, after the earthquake