Amman Imman Brings Water and Hope to the Azawak of West Africa… Amman Imman is dedicated to improving and saving lives among the poorest and most abandoned populations of the world by supplying permanent sources of water to the people living in the Azawak Valley, West Africa.

In A World Without Water, A Daily Struggle for Survival

The Azawak. A vast plain on the edge of the Sahara, mostly in Niger, West Africa and extending into Mali. The size of Florida, the Azawak is home to 500,000 mostly nomadic inhabitants and their animals.

In this region, where there is no infrastructure to provide resources, the lives of the people are punctuated by the daily search for water. During the 3 month rainy season, the people retrieve their water from muddy marshes and shallow wells, shared with animals. The water they drink is as dark as hot chocolate and contaminated with human and animal waste. During the 9 month dry season when the shallow wells and marshes dry up, the only usable wells that can be found are on the outskirts of this large region.

With men and boys traveling long distances to find water for their animals, and women home with small children, the job of finding water for the family usually falls to young girls, who travel as much as 35 miles a day to and from the nearest well, only to bring a small amount of water back to their families.

Nomads depend on their animals, but without water, their herds are dwindling. With the dwindling of the herds, comes the dwindling of a culture. Animals are dying, people are dying.

There is water in the Azawak deep under the ground in sustainable aquifers. Borehole wells are needed to reach the clean water that is there. Due to depth of the water table, as well as the lack of roads and other infrastructure, constructing borehole wells is costly. Yet research has proven that this type of structure is the best solution to save and improve the lives of the people living in this region.