Blood:Water Mission is dedicated to empowering Africans to build healthier communities through sustainable clean blood and clean water solutions, while developing social responsibility in the U.S. through initiatives that provoke personal engagement and ownership.

The 1000 Wells Project was initiated in the Spring of 2005. It raises awareness and funds toward the goal of providing 1000 clean water solutions across Africa.

Blood:Water Mission's 2007 Strategic Goals include developing a long term strategy for its response to HIV/AIDS (Blood) in Africa. Our beginning steps toward directly addressing HIV/AIDS has been supporting the development of some health clinics in South Africa and Kenya.

When Dan Haseltine, Jars of Clay's lead singer, visited Africa in 2002, he had to struggle to accept what he saw. Poverty and physical and social suffering in Africa shook him, challenged him, and changed him.

Haseltine returned overwhelmed by despair, transformed by hope and called to action. He came back with a vision for clean blood and clean water in Africa -- blood free of the HIV virus and water free of parasites and bacteria that cause AIDS patients and others undue suffering. He and his band mates envisioned this orphaned continent to be transformed through the installation of Christ's sacrificial symbols of blood and water.

Jars of Clay's main audience are the church and young people across the nation. The band knows that both populations are uniquely equipped to respond to world suffering and injustice. The band members saw a shining opportunity for people to offer Gods hand of mercy in the broken places. They believed that through bringing the crisis to the minds and hearts of Americans and through presenting opportunities to make a positive tangible impact in Africa, lives would be transformed both here and there.

This, then, is the Blood:Water Mission, committed to clean blood and clean water to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic, to build clean wells in Africa, to support medical facilities caring for the sick, to make a lasting impact in the fight against poverty, injustice and oppression in Africa through the linking of needs, talents and continents, of people and resources.

From the end of 2004 to the beginning of 2007, more than 100 clean water solutions have been provided in Kenya, Uganda, Swaziland, Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Central African Republic, and Sudan. As a result, more than 100,000 people have access to clean water and healthier communities. We have visited many of the communities to see firsthand how clean water has transformed lives in a village.

Through the simple equation of $1 = clean water for 1 African for 1 year, hundreds of thousands of young people have participated in campaigns for the 1000 Wells Project. They often engage family members, churches, and schools, among others in raising awareness and funds for the 1000 Wells Project. Young people are realizing that their creativity and initiative are making a tangible difference in their own communities as well as in Africa.

In 2004, utilizing the platform of Jars of Clay in the U.S. as well as some concerts in South Africa, BWM helped fund a late-stage AIDS hospice at the Living Hope Community Centre in Cape Town, South Africa.