ABOUT US

In January 2010, 18 24 volunteers embarked on a two-week medical mission trip to Tanzania, a coastal East African country home to the Serengeti National Park, Mount Kilimanjaro and Lake Victoria. We traveled to several villages setting up mobile clinics and treating over 850 patients. 

Most of the patients we encountered had never seen a doctor, and almost all of them suffered from intestinal worms – a waterborne illness. Many of them also suffered from malaria, hypertension and neck and back pain. 

As we drove from village to village, we saw an increasingly familiar scene: women and children walking far from home to fetch water from unsafe sources. Women were spending a lot of time away from their farms and families, and children were missing school and weren’t left with enough daylight hours to study. 

What made the biggest impression on us was a little girl filling an old plastic water bottle with muddy rain water. She drank it with great satisfaction, because it quenched her thirst. Needless to say, we were stunned and very concerned. 

As our medical mission trip came to a close, a few of us met with Metropolitan GJeronymos of Mwanza and asked him, “What is the greatest need in Tanzania?” 

With that question, he lowered his head and paused for several seconds. He looked up at us and answered simply, “Water is life.” 

That day we made a promise – to raise funds to buy drilling equipment and begin developing wells. That’s how it began. We raised enough money to purchase a drilling rig and within three five months after the rig arrived in Tanzania, we developed the our first well. 

Mission IsPossible is an Outreach Ministry of St. Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church in Irvine, California. Right now We co-fundraise with Mission Tanzania an Outreach Ministry of St. Barbara’s Greek Orthodox Church. We’re primarily currently focused on educating, training and hiring local Tanzanians to drill, maintain and repair deep water wells, teach sanitation and hygiene and support our partner clinic. We currently employ two crews of six local experts who operate two rigs at the same time concurrently – one drilling rig and one pump installation and repair rig. Our teams of skilled local professionals work year-round throughout northwest Tanzania. 

Because we own our drilling equipment and vehicles, we can keep our costs low while we drill continuously. We install high-quality American-made pumps and are committed to sourcing the best supplies from vendors we know and trust. We install high-quality American-made electric pumps and highest-quality foreign hand pumps. We are committed to sourcing the best supplies from vendors we know and trust. 

100% of our US-based operations, fundraising and marketing efforts are designed, organized and maintained by volunteers*. We send our US project manager three times a year to replenish supplies, check in on active projects and make catch up with old friends. Our WaSH manager travels once a year to teach new communities that receive a well and check in on communities that have previously received sanitation and hygiene training. We also send a small delegation of self-funded American volunteers every year to visit our in-country field operations team and to tour villages where wells have been developed.