Village Water Zambia
http://www.villagewater.org/home
In Zambia most rural villagers do not have access to enough clean water. A village woman often spends three hours a day carrying one 20-litre plastic container of water. This is not sufficient water for drinking, cooking and washing. Diarrhoea and other water-borne diseases are common and life-threatening.
Village Water believes that no one should be that deprived of water in our modern world.
It is working to provide sustainable clean water supplies, sanitation and hygiene education to rural communities in Zambia.
How the money is used:
- £10 provides hygiene education and clean water for one person.
- £40 buys cement for a rehabilitated well.
- £100 covers the travel costs for working with one community programme.
- £150 provides a week of pump mender training for 2 villagers.
- £200 buys the cement needed to install a new well.
- £300 pays for 3 field workers to carry out a full programme of hygiene and sanitation training in a community.
- £450 pays for a brand new India Mark II water pump.
- £1,500 pays for refurbishing an installation, bringing a useless pump back into full use, plus a sanitation and hygiene program and training in pump maintenance.
- £2,500 pays for a complete pump installation plus a sanitation and hygiene program for a village of 250 people.
How the charity works:
Villagers are encouraged to form a committee to ensure maintenance of the well that is to be dug or ‘rehabilitated’. Village Water then locate a water source (by divining!) and dig a well, or refurbish a broken well. They provide a concrete cover and hand pump. Villagers dig their own pit latrines and refuse disposal pits and build hand washing stands and bath shelters to encourage better hygiene. Community workers show the villagers how to make and erect vegetable and plate racks to keep food and kitchen utensils off the ground, away from dogs. One rural health centre located in a community benefiting from a Village Water programme has reported a drop of 80% in childhood diarrhoea.
Villagers depend on scoopholes in the ground
for their drinking water
Disease is rife
The India Mark II water pump in action