MPONELA, Malawi (KDVR) — It is a herculean task. A nonprofit with the ambitious goal of completing the installation of more than 4,000 safe, sustainable drinking wells in remote east African villages. And a Colorado volunteer plays a crucial role in pulling it off.
Jim Nussbaumer of Estes Park is a retired software engineer who’s been traveling to Malawi with a charity called Marion Medical Mission since 1999. He helps the organization get the tools needed to help crews install the 58,000 wells they’ve already completed across Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique.
He also helps them secure the rugged vehicles needed to get the job done. And he’s helped in the manufacture of the pumps that pull the well water from the ground, giving fresh water to an estimated five million Africans who, in the past, were forced to drink contaminated, dangerous water, full of bacteria from animals that share the same water source.
But well water isn’t the only reason Nussbaumer is drawn to one of the poorest, least developed countries on earth. He actually first came to Malawi nearly 30 years ago, when his wife Carol went to work at the Embangweni School for Deaf Children in northern Malawi.
“And it became very clear it was a call from God that this was her chosen position,” Nussbaumer told FOX31.
In addition to installing all those water wells all over east Africa, Marion Medical Mission came up with the money to build the first classroom block at the school years ago, and they’ve helped build several new buildings for the students in the years since.
The Nussbaumers decided to take things a step further, honoring Jim’s late parents by funding the boys’ hostel at the school. Some 80 boys now have a home away from home at the specialized school, thanks to the Colorado couple.
The school educates about 200 deaf and hard-of-hearing students and students with developmental disabilities. They travel from up to a hundred miles away, and stay on campus for weeks at a time, learning sign language and other skills.
And it’s just one way the Nussbaumers have deep roots thousands of miles away from home. Just a few yards from the dorm building their family funded, you’ll find the Carol and Jim Nussbaumer Garden, where students and others are hard at work growing fresh food in a country where a lack of nutrition often rivals the lack of clean water.
“And we got seeds for several years from a local manufacturer or distributor in Colorado,” Nussbaumer said,
There are a lot of ways to help people in need in east Africa. The Nussbaumers and a couple of dozen other volunteers working right now in one of the poorest, least developed regions in the world have found more than one way to do it.
“And all of this is obviously, you know, not our doing. There’s no question. The whole thing was preordained. We just had to answer the call eventually,” Nussbaumer said.
Anthony Sutton is a business strategist and writer with a passion for management, leadership, and entrepreneurship. With years of experience in the corporate world, he shares insights on business growth, strategy, and innovation through management-opleiding.org.
