Through investments to refurbish broken water wells in rural Malawi, this project seeks to save and enhance thousands of people's lives and while contributing to elephant and wildlife conservation efforts. Refurbishing water wells profoundly transforms people's lives by improving their health, creating economic opportunities, and enabling the pursuit of education. This will also help save elephant lives by reducing conflict between people and wildlife created by the search for water and income.
Rural villagers in central Malawi are experiencing acute drinking water crises from broken water wells. Women and girls are forced to walk miles to collect contaminated surface water, wasting time that could be invested in work or school, keeping people in poverty and compromising health. For people living near the Nkhotakota Wildlife Reserve, home to hundreds of endangered elephants, the water search leads them into conflict with wildlife, and some people turn to poaching for food and income.
Refurbished water wells provide communities with accessible clean water. Water User Committees manage the resource by collecting user fees to build a maintenance fund for future repairs and encourage women's empowerment through their involvement in WUCs. Additionally, communities learn about wildlife protection and conservation. This project improves the health and livelihoods of rural communities in Malawi, promotes women's empowerment, and enhances elephant and wildlife conservation.
1) Save lives and improve the health of rural Malawians by reducing waterborne diseases, particularly cholera. 2) Improve family livelihoods by the productive use of time previously spent fetching dirty water. 3) Support children's education by enabling them to spend more time in school. 4) Encourage women's empowerment as members of Water User Committees. 5) Save elephant lives by reducing conflicts between people and elephants and building awareness of wildlife protection and conservation.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
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