Meet the men and women who are changing lives in Africa

Working in partnership

We share the same vision with all our Africa partners of a world where no-one suffers from diseases caused by poor water, hygiene and sanitation.

When we choose to work with a local organisation, it is because we feel they have the skills, dedication and professionalism we need to ensure lasting change. We commit to long-term partnerships so that the work we support is rooted in security, learning, and sharing.

WATSAN Mozambique

Promoting self-reliance through sustainable development

Director – Blessing Njopera

Manica Province, situated in Central Mozambique, is home to our local partners WATSAN Mozambique. This region has a desperate need for water and sanitation – more than 40% of people have no access to improved water sources, and 85% have no decent toilet facilities.

WATSAN was founded in 2019 by Blessing Njopera and is a development and relief organization committed to caring for and empowering the vulnerable and excluded by promoting self-reliance through sustainable development & provision of water and sanitation facilities.

Their activities are having a profound socio-economic impact, particularly for women and girls much of whose time is taken up by fetching water.

The WATSAN team is innovative and proactive to the extent that they have engaged local men, women, and young girls to set up their own support ‘clubs’ to deal with some of the health and sanitation issues they face.

We are so proud of how the team has embraced their recent growth in order to deliver an increased programme, reaching more than 460,000 people, and we are sure they will continue to flourish.

Website: https://watsanmozambique.org

WATSAN team during tropical cyclone Eloise – WATSAN continued to reach out to remote communities despite bad weather, thanks to their motorbikes and the right kit

ECHO, Zambia

Empowered Communities Helping Others (ECHO)

Executive Director – Mubiana Muyangwa

Central and Western provinces of Zambia comprise mainly rural communities where sources of drinking water for most households are unprotected wells and streams, often shared with animals.

Women and girls are responsible for fetching water which takes up much of their economic and educational time. And the water is unsafe to drink and needs to be boiled using firewood before drinking.

Our partner, Empowered Communities Helping Others (ECHO) is implementing a safe water project involving rehabilitation of broken-down boreholes, giving families access to safe drinking water within their community. This results in huge reductions in diseases and prevents carbon emissions as trees are saved. ECHO staff has rehabilitated 350 water points since 2019, and constructed 11 new waterpoints, benefiting a population of over 170,000.

ECHO, Zambia
Team ECHO, Zambia

Village Water Zambia – End of an Era

Village Water has taken the difficult decision to stop funding Village Water Zambia (VWZ) as of 31 December 2021.

In recent years we have mainly funded VWZ from restricted grants for self-supply and from the UK government, projects which all came to an end in 2021. With no secured activities, we have decided to invest our relatively modest funds in our two remaining partners – ECHO in Zambia and Watsan in Mozambique, both new organisations at the start of their development. We hope that in the coming years they will move on to directly run projects funded by institutional donors like the EU and Unicef, just as VWZ has done.

We will continue to visit older communities we have funded through VWZ to ensure that the project benefits endure, working closely with the local councils and well construction enterprises.

We want to acknowledge the hard work of the VWZ team members we have worked with over the years and wish them the very best for their future direction.