By Sarah Cohen | Partnership Manager
COUNTRY: Ethiopia
TOTAL AMOUNT DONATED TO CHARITY: WATER: $101,866.95
PROJECT START DATE: May 2011
STATUS: In progress
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Work is well underway in Ethiopia with the funds from the community at Global Giving!
Program Review
Once the project construction is complete, our implementing partners review the functionality and the community’s response and impact of the project.
A large part of the success of any water program is changing behavior of local communities. This involves not only extensive and appropriate training on using the new water projects like keeping the space around it clear from contamination (many villages build a fence to keep out animals), and a system for maintenance and repair.
Maintenance and Sustainability
Here’s a great excerpt from a recent story on the critical need for building in maintenance and sustainability in the long term for each of our programs...
At charity: water, we know that building a water project is the easy part. Keeping clean water flowing over time, however, is a complex business that requires money, training and innovative thinking. It's something we've always been committed to.
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 after we're gone. At first, our field partners start with ownership.
We believe if the community feels a strong sense of ownership, they'll see their well as a critical asset to everyone and take good care of it collectively. Another important piece is the formation of a Water Committee. A 6-8 person team is selected from the village (often it's at least half women) and trained to make minor repairs. Often, our partners will leave spare parts for the village in case the well breaks -- because sooner or later, something always breaks. If the Water Committee is in place and active, that will keep water flowing most of the time. But sometimes a problem arises that's too big for even the best Water Committee members to tackle. Communities could wait months for repairs while they go back to drinking dirty water.
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