This project aims to empower 5,000+ residents of a rural area in Zambia toward prosperity through developing sources of clean water with income-generating gardens, all on a microfinance platform.
Extreme poverty and recurring water-related diseases such as cholera and diarrhea compound together and hold many underserved rural areas in a vicious cycle. Like much of rural Zambia, 98.5% of residents of the Simango sub-district, earn less than $1.25 / day, and many go hungry through the long dry season as most depend wholly on their yields of rainfed maize to meet their subsistence needs and household expenditures. Water sources are commonly contaminated or located far from households
Through microfinance, households will be offered the chance to improve their own lives by using water and horticultural inputs given on a loan platform to implement a 3-step self-financed water improvement program: 1) develop a clean water source 2) plant a garden and 3) earn income.
By creating income opportunities from clean water sources, short-term health impacts are more likely to be sustained long after the initial project is implemented. Also, since every improvement is self-financed, users can choose their own upward path
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
