Safe Drinking Water for 40 schools in Bolivia

Dear supporters,

This is a short update from the field, keeping you informed about recent developments at the 40 schools in Tiquipaya, Bolivia. As all schools in Bolivia are closed for vacation in January, activities at schools started in February. After doing a lot of training and educational work in 2012, we are now going into the second year of the project, focusing more on behavior change and on involving the communities around the schools.

The evaluation at the end of 2012 showed that within the first year, the project achieved some significant changes in knowledge, attitude and practices related to water, sanitation and hygiene. For example, 92% of the kids had safe drinking water available within their classroom in November 2012 (up from 0% at the start of the project), and 89% of the children washed their hands before eating (up from 5% at the start of the project). These are simple interventions which do not require large investments in infrastructure, and research has shown that they are effective in reducing diseases like diarrhea and pneumonia, the two major killers of children in developing countries.

In December 2012, we decided to launch a micro-project within this project framework, which focused on improving drinking water quality at the day care centers of the same municipality (Tiquipaya). Working at day care centers enables us to reach out to pre-school children, which are the most vulnerable ones in respect to diarrhea and pneumonia. The project met with huge interest on behalf of donors, and for almost 2 weeks the project was ranked number one of all projects on the Global Giving platform (more than 10,000 projects). Within less than a month, more than 100 people donated to this micro-project, which already is completely funded by now. We are now working with 15 day care centers and identified additional 23, so within a short time we will launch another micro-project.

Apart from progress in the field, we also would like to inform you about a special donation opportunity: On March 13^th, all donations will be matched by additional 30% by the Global Giving Foundation. That means that if you donate $100 that day, $130 will actually go to the project (any amount up to $1,000 will be matched). Matching will begin at 9:00 am EDT (this time in your city) and matching will last until funds run out or 11:59 pm EDT. If you consider making a donation to our project (or any other on www.globalgiving.org), please make use of this special opportunity - for no extra effort, you will get 30% more impact out of your donation.

Please let us know if this project report met your expectations. We are happy to provide additional information or answer specific questions – it is up to you to get involved. If you think this report was useful, please pass it on to your personal contacts – thank you.

Best regards from the whole project team

Matthias Saladin

Links:

• Check out our Facebook page