Safe Drinking Water for 80,000 Children in Bolivia

Dear supporters, 

This is a short update on our project to provide 80,000 children in Bolivia with safe drinking water, which you generously supported in the past.

In spite of the fact that we already reached more than 80,000 children in our first project phase, we want to further expand the project. Currently, the SODIS Foundation is working on a project with UNICEF in several rural communities of the Cochabamba Department, where we have been training women’s groups over the past few months on how to obtain safe drinking water and how to improve hygiene conditions with simple measures.

In the current project phase, we will be working in schools in Sacabamba and surrounding communities in order to improve water, sanitation and hygiene conditions. Often, with simple measures a significant change can be achieved in these schools. For example, the mobile hand washing units cost only a few cents to install but make a large difference in improving hygiene conditions. Another of our favourite inventions is the “healthy corner” (“rincón de aseo” in Spanish), where children store their drinking water, clean cups and other utensils to improve hygiene (see picture).

We also would like to point out to the “recurring donation campaign” on the Global Giving website. With this new feature, you can now donate over a certain period of time (e.g., $10 per month). Such donations help us to improve project planning and we would like to encourage you to make use of this function.

Again, we would to thank you for all the support to our project. Thanks to hundreds of supporters like you, we are getting close to our next fundraising goal of $20,000: as of today (May 12, 2011), we raised $19,575. With a little help, we can make a big difference. 

For the project team,