Clean, safe drinking water is an everyday necessity. It is a daily privilege for us and a daily heartache for many.

An estimated 1.6 billion people need access to clean, safe drinking water and improved sanitation, 884 million of these live in sub-Saharan Africa. There are 2.2 million deaths caused by diarrhoeal diseases per year, that means 6,000 children will die today from water related diseases.

The benefits of our programs are so much more than just bringing water to a community. It’s often said that “water is life”.

This project will bring clean, safe drinking water and improved health to desperate and vulnerable communities.

Below is a high level summary of our program of work:

1. Our grassroots partners identifies a desperate community
2. A water committee is formed to create project ownership
3. A borehole is drilled
4. Water quality samples are tested to ensure WHO standards are met, i.e. water is safe for human consumption
5. Where possible community members are engaged to contribute labour and get involved
6. Use of cutting edge equipment, such as a submersible pump, tank stand, overflow tank and solar panels are installed by professional water specialists
7. Training in basic pump maintenance is provided to 3-5 people
8. Finally, Sanitation and Hygiene education is conducted. This is usually to 30-50 people whereby they then become the change champions and are responsible to communicate the change and transfer knowledge in hygiene practices to the wider community via their normal communication channels.

Note: Studies found that adequate water supply and sanitation could reduce water related diseases by 77%. The results are overall improved health and dramatic reduction in child mortality.

Communities with large number of people (typically > 5,000) need access to an adequate water supply. This is not only a fundamental need it’s a basic human right. Access to water supply also has considerable health and economic benefits to households and individuals. On the other hand, the lack of access to adequate water contributes to deaths and illness, especially in children. Thus, the improvement of access to water is a crucial element in the reduction of under-five mortality and morbidity, particularly in poor urban and rural areas.

Access to water also means that the considerable amount of time women and children spend for fetching water could be spent more effectively on other tasks, improving their economic productivity, a key component in poverty alleviation efforts.

The water that is available is not fit for human consumption (unless it has first been boiled to kill all the germs and bacteria contained within). The current water supply is also used for animals (they bathe and drink from the same supply). It is also the main source used for irrigation of vegetable gardens.

For an average community of 5,000 people our  cost per head is approximately $2.60. When you factor this over a 10-15 year life span of the equipment this equates to approx $0.26 cost per head per year or $0.0007 cost per head per day.  And based on a water yield capacity of 43,000 litres per day, the cost per litre is approximately $0.001. Each person has access to approximately 6 litres of clean drinking water per day

Through the use of solar technology our projects draw on renewable energy making the lifespan of the project a lot more sustainable. This leading edge technology reduces maintenance in moving parts and it produces greater water yields (3X greater than hand pumps). Bottom line, it brings more clean, safe drinking water to larger communities and with it improved health to all the beneficiaries.

This project will definitely transform the lives of the people.Some of the life changes that result from this project include:

• Provide an everyday necessity, to have easy access to drinking water for the community with a population of 5,000 + people
• Beneficiaries will receive approximately 6-8 litres of clean, safe water per day
• Increase the health of individuals and communities through improved sanitation and hygiene education
• The children have a greater chance to live past the age of 5 because they do not fall sick due to water related diseases
• Reduce the incidence of diarrhea by up to 47% by the basic practice of hand-washing with soap (via the Hygiene education program)
• Women / young girls no longer walking long distances to collect dirty water to drink for their families
• A closer proximity for access as the children will not have to cross the highway and at times be exposed to sexual predators.
• Children can go to school and get educated instead of spending hours going back and forth to fetch water from an unclean source (26% of their time is spent fetching water) – WHO & Unicef Report 2010.
• It will assist in the growth of healthy vegetation which can be sold as produce for a small business
• Water hygiene and sanitation training for the community