In some cases, up to 30% of the cost of a charity: water project goes into training and educating the community about how to take care of the well long after we’re gone.
Today, our friends at TOMS asked everyone they knew to kick off their heels or sneakers to help spread awareness about millions of children who live without proper footwear every day. We’ve always supported TOMS’ work, and today is no different.
Remember when we launched our first-edition water project shoe with TOMS in spring of 2010? $5 from every sale of shoes went to fund a water project in Ethiopia. We sold out in weeks and raised enough money to fund an entire well for a community in rural Ethiopia called Sekura.
Late last year, the charity: water team visited Sekura Village… see the impact of your shoe purchase:
Learn more about our partnership with TOMS here >
In September 2011, we asked you to help fund charity: water’s first drilling rig to bring clean water to 40,000 new people every year in rural Ethiopia. More than 1,400 mycharity: water fundraisers and donors answered in a big way, raising more than $1.2 million for a brand new drilling rig fleet.
By now, you probably know we’re big on showing impact. From proving every completed water project with photos and GPS to sharing stories from people you’ve helped get clean water to drink — we want you to see how you’ve changed lives.
And today… we have exciting news! We were expecting to drill the first well with the new rig in May of this year. But Founder Scott Harrison was just in Ethiopia and… the first drilling rig arrived early!
Take a look at how your support is already helping bring life’s most basic need to people in Ethiopia:
We’re so grateful for your support of our work, our partners’ work, and our mission to end the water crisis. Thank you, September Campaign supporters! And stay tuned: as promised, we’re getting the GPS device set up in this rig soon so you can track its progress from village to village.
Today is International Women’s Day. We’re taking a minute to celebrate some of the women of this past year — specifically, some amazing daughters, mothers and grandmothers we met in November 2011 while traveling in the Amhara region of Ethiopia.
Almost a billion people in the world live without clean water. We call that the water crisis. And while we know many of these are men, the water crisis takes a significant toll on women of the world. Women are twice as likely as men to collect water for their families each day. Many in Sub-Saharan Africa walk up to four hours each day to get water that’s likely to make them sick when they get it home to drink.
Today, we hope you join us in recognizing the women of this world who bear this burden, who get up early or stay out dangerously late, who haul forty pounds of water weight in a Jerry can strapped to their backs… who strive for and hope for their children’s health, who put their families first. We’re lucky enough to have met some when we travel to the field. Their stories continue to shock us, inspire us and keep us working to bring clean water to every person on the planet.
I can’t get it to print.
It’s Monday morning at charity: water, and Stacie, one of our Development Interns, is standing next to my desk, laptop in hand, looking concerned. As the IT Manager, I run the helpdesk, which means fixing things for the staff when they fail — programs that won’t print, computers that seize up, emails that don’t go through. I’ve been managing our systems for two years now, and I’m proud that things run smoothly… most of the time.
In a few moments, I figure out the problem, and Stacie smiles and goes back to her desk. I’ve learned that you can’t prevent every problem from happening. All disk drives eventually fail, IT managers say. But there are always solutions. One of the tricks is to be creative.
Don’t focus on why something won’t work; focus instead on how to make it work again, even if it’s not the way it worked before.
So far, this has in our office in New York City. Last month, I got to see how it could also apply to the challenges surrounding our work in East Africa. Specifically — how it applies to remote monitoring of our water projects here.
Nat Paynter, charity: water’s Water Programs Director, and I arrive in Malawi during rainy season, and everything is green and lush. I tell Nat it reminds me of my childhood in Florida; he seems disappointed. Nat has spent many years in Africa working on water and sanitation issues. It’s my first time here and I think he wants me to find it more exotic, foreign. But on the second day we get caught in a thunderstorm and again I think of Miami — it comes on quick and fierce, the trees blow sideways and the water washes off the rooftops in sheets, for a brief time it even hails — then suddenly it’s over and the sun is out, steam rising from the wet earth and trees.
Despite this evidence of water abundance, Malawi is caught in the water crisis. The government estimates only 40% of the population has access to clean and safe water, and the actual figure is probably lower.
Malawi is one of the poorest countries in Africa. The government, though stable, has continuing problems with corruption and chronic revenue shortages. The local currency is of little value outside the country. As in many developing nations, public services such as water and sanitation are woefully underfunded. While there was a government presence in the districts we visited, they had little staff and few funds to carry out their work.
This is where Water for People-Malawi, one of our partnering organizations here, comes in. They have been working for more than a decade to bring improved water and sanitation to the people of Malawi.
Our first day in the field, we drive out of the city to the rural district of Chikhwawa, where about half a million people live. Heading south, we descend from the hills of Blantyre onto the expanse of the Shire valley, a broad plain bisected by the Shire river. Even though it’s the rainy season, we cross many dry culverts and washes. Later, I will read that the annual rainfall in Malawi has been gradually decreasing for more than a decade, a consequence of shifting weather patterns due to global warming.
At the first village we visit, we’re greeted by song and dance: women in brightly colored dresses, some with infants wrapped to their backs, clapping and stamping the earth with bare feet.
One of my first impressions is how clean and tidy the village seems. There is no clutter, no stuff lying about. Then it hits me: these people are poor. They don’t have much to leave sitting around.
Nat interviews the water committee:
“How were you selected?”
–The whole village had a meeting. We all decided.
“I see you are all women…”
–Yes, because it is the women who collect water.
Water for People doesn’t just build wells. They educate communities in sanitation and hygiene issues; they help to organize water committees; they develop new strategies for well maintenance and repair at the village level, and they try to keep it all affordable.
Ownership is key in their efforts. Only when a community feels invested in a water point and responsible for it is sustainability possible. Water for People is good at “thinking the entire process through,” Nat tells me.
I’m here to see if these efforts can be enhanced through remote monitoring, which means keeping an eye on the water points from afar. Back in Blantyre, I talk with Water for People’s Programs Director, Muthi Nhlema. He is using a technology called FLOW (Field Level Operations Watch) as a reporting and monitoring tool. Here’s how it works: Water For People gives specially-programmed cell phones to staff or volunteers, who collect data — GPS coordinates, populations served, how much water is flowing — at each water point.
Once these phones have internet access, they automatically upload all the data to be posted on Water for People website so anyone — government, partners and the public — can see them. Water For People monitors, evaluates and makes adjustments to their program with this info. It’s a brilliant idea, but the process is hampered by the need to send people into the field. Some wells are not visited again until a year and a half after they are constructed.
Now imagine if the cell phone could live at the well. Constantly, automatically sending back data: The well is working. The well is working. The well has stopped working. The well needs to be repaired.
This would be an invaluable tool to help all parties make sure the water keeps flowing. Here’s a breakdown of the difference between what Water For People uses now and what they hope to use in the future with charity: water’s support:
Water for People’s program and their commitment to sustainability are strong. This is a promising opportunity to support a pilot program on remote monitoring.
On my last evening before returning home, I sit on the balcony at the hotel, watching bats flit against the sky as night approaches. Innovating a remote monitoring tool and deploying it will be a huge challenge — I think of a dozen reasons why it won’t work.
But charity: water is committed to keeping the water flowing. We owe it to the communities I saw here, to the local partners like Water for People who work hard to bring water to those communities, and to our donors, who make everything we do possible.
And I remember Stacie at the office, and the laptop that won’t print.
There are always solutions. Be creative.
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