Green Country Volunteers Return To Help After Nepal Earthquakes

A group of Green Country volunteers are back in Nepal to help people recover from back to back earthquakes in April and May.

The quakes killed nearly 8,500 people and left many more homeless.

Months after one of the deadliest earthquakes in Nepal’s history, the survivors continue to rebuild after most homes turned to rubble.

Volunteers with Catoosa-based non-profit Global Ventures are going there to lend a hand.

4/29/2015 Related Story: Catoosa-Based Ministry Team Helping Victims Of Nepal Earthquake

Director of International Coordination, Dave Young said, "I'm excited, but the reality is, as of now, there's not really any reconstruction work happening."

Young just happened to be in Nepal when the 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit April 25th.

"There's a lot of buildings still up, but there's thousands that have collapsed," he said.

The Global Ventures team helped build homes and was some of the first to provide first-aid and clean drinking water to survivors.

Young said, "A lot of the local water sources were contaminated by the infrastructure damage."

Now he is going back with 115 others, some from the Tulsa Area. One of their main goals is to provide fresh drinking water; and instead of handing out one bottle at a time they will give whole villages the power to purify hundreds of gallons a day with a few inexpensive items.

Minister John Smithwick said, "You drill a hole with this drill, right into a simple bucket, and that allows it to attach and seals it."

Then, you place the tube and filter in another bucket below and let gravity do the work.

"You open the bottom spout there and, all of a sudden, it goes from filthy water with all sorts of residue in there to totally clean, drinkable water," Smithwick said.

The team has a goal to distribute more than 1,000 of the filters to villages all over Nepal.

It's getting packed in luggage and will soon come to the aid of thousands in need.

All of the volunteers will complete their mission by the end of November and then return home.