Forest Hills Hopes to Make Water Flow in Nigeria

By Linda Busetti

Every day when Father Christopher Okorie was a little boy in Nigeria he carried water for six miles from a polluted stream home to the village of Obinagu for his family’s use. He was almost home one day when he tripped and the container fell spilling all the water. “I cried,” he recalls.

Years later, as a priest, he saw children carrying water jugs on their heads for miles the way he had. “What use am I to them?” he asked himself. “There has been no change.”

He prayed, “Make me an instrument of change.”

When Father Okorie came to Our Lady of Mercy parish in Forest Hills as an assistant, he shared that story.

As a result, for the past year, Our Lady of Mercy’s non-profit charitable organization Water for Life in Africa has raised funds for the digging of a permanent well in Obinagu (The Tablet, April 28). The cost is estimated at between $100,000-$150,000.

WATER FOR LIFE is the mission of Peg Offenberger, Jim Freeley and Father Christopher Okorie, below, who are raising funds for a well in Father Okorie’s native Nigeria, above, where children carry water for miles each day.

Over the past year, Father Okorie has never doubted that the good thing that has been begun will come to fruition.

“When I dream, I see the water,” he says, “I have never had any doubts that this would be a successful project.”

Since the Tablet story, Water for Life has received about $40,000 in donations. These range from a $10,000 grant to a check for $2 from a gentleman on a fixed income.

“I am amazed,” Father Okorie says, “at how people are thinking about others who they do not know.”

A member of the local Rotary Club read about the project and now Water for Life is in negotiations to receive funding from that group.

Water for Life committee member Peg Offenberger continues to be amazed at how the pieces have come together.

After she spoke about Water for Life at a parish Lenten Soup Supper, Harry Kohlman walked up to her. “My name is Harry. I’m an engineer. I’ve worked in Nigeria. I’ve been there four times. What can I do to help you?” he said. Now he is a vital part of the project, interpreting the engineering reports that arrive from Nigeria. His colleague, Cynthia Doughty, who specializes in water engineering, has also been a great help.

At a parish fundraiser, a woman sitting across from Offenberger introduced herself as being new to the parish and looking to meet people. She was LouAnn Pavelino Gaither, a professional singer whose husband, Jay, composes Broadway style music. Offenberger could see the pieces coming together again. “How would you feel about doing a pro bono fundraiser?” Offenberger asked. Her new friend readily agreed. Someone else has offered use of a performance space. So, plans are in the works for a spring fundraiser.

“I’m totally amazed,” Offenberger says, “We don’t even have to ask. It just comes.”

Father Okorie stays in touch with people in Obinagu by phone. “This is a miracle for them,” he says. “These are people whose lives have been neglected by politicians.

This intervention is like an intervention from above.”

Ideally, the Nigerian government should be taking care of the people’s needs for clean water and electricity, but money and the “distribution of amenities” do not reach the people, Father Okorie explains.

In June 2006, when Father Okorie last visited Obinagu, he told the people to have hope. He himself is a survivor of the genocide in Biafra where he was born in 1967. He spent his early years in a refugee camp. “I told the kids, ‘Don’t get involved in violence. Hope is coming. Do the right thing.’”

There is reason for hope. “The results of the geological survey (for the well) were excellent, so detailed,” Father Okorie says. The dry season is beginning and will last until March. During this time, tests can be done to determine true water levels. By late January 2008, drilling should begin.

The well will “change daily life tremendously,” Father Okorie says. “The time and energy that people spend in the search for water could be re-directed.” Clean water will replace the current water source, which is contaminated with water-borne diseases. About 50 children in the village of 5,000 die every year from cholera, E-coli or guinea worm.

“Nobody has tried “to put the pin in before,” says Father Okorie, his way of saying no one has taken action.

When people talk about Africans, he said, they make the people sound as though they can do nothing for themselves. “They have been so disappointed,” he explains. “They have been promised so many things. They have expected the government to work for them, but now people don’t expect the government to do anything. People are used to not having things happen.”

In Lagos, a major city, whole apartment buildings have no electricity. On every veranda is a generator with tangles of wires. At night you hear the competing sounds of generators, he says. Even in the city, people must buy clean water.

He understands their frustration. In his “zeal for change,” Father Okorie became an activist in Nigeria. As an observer of elections, he became very disillusioned when what he witnessed was very different from what was reported about the elections by international observers.

Even worse, he says, Nigerians have been exploited in the search for oil in the Niger Delta. The people do not benefit from the resources taken from their land and, if they protest oil spillages, their houses are burned, he explains.

Through Water for Life, Father Okorie says, “People in Nigeria and people in the U.S. can know each other one on one. They can go beyond stereotypes.”

For example, committee member Jim Freeley, an associate professor in business at C.W. Post College, involved his students in the project. In the spirit of social entrepreneurship, they hosted a fashion show to benefit Water for Life and raised $5,000.

Father Okorie had the opportunity to talk to these “businessmen of tomorrow.” He was amazed at “how they were touched” by the plight of people they have never met. He saw this as spirituality, “something of ultimate value in their lives. It came from their hearts.”

He took the opportunity to talk about the “crisis in Africa” resulting from the pursuit of gold, oil and diamonds. He says the term ‘Third World’ should be replaced by “the exploited world.”

“Put a human face on your business,” he told them, “That is what the world needs.”

Father Okorie also serves as part-time chaplain at St. John’s Prep, Astoria, where students have raised almost $4,000 for Water for Life. The project has sparked their interest and they are thinking about a trip to Nigeria as a service project.

People in Nigeria need the basics, Father Okorie says. “It is an issue of life. It is the Gospel mission of Christ that they may have life and have it in abundance. If they are not having life, then they are not having what God wants for them.”

Father Okorie’s hope shines through. “It will happen. I pray for that day when the focal point becomes humanity and not money.”

“It has been a spiritual journey for me,” Father Okorie says. “It has been for all of us,” Offenberger adds.

In all of this, Father Okorie has been the spark. The words of a hymn, “I say yes, my Lord,” are his affirmation. “Once we say yes to something positive, God comes and takes control. He says, ‘Go ahead!’”

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