Tag Archives: clean water

World Water Day: A story of renewed life in Mozambique

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Belis Matabire in Causes

How much does access to clean, safe water matter to a rural family in Africa? In honor of World Water Day, March 22, we share this story of success from Mozambique, written by World Vision’s Belis Matabire, who has worked with our water, sanitation, and hygiene programs in Southern Africa for the past 12 years. * * * Lito’s mother, Olinda Cochieque, knocks on his door. Stirring from sleep, Lito Eduardo, 12, abandons the warmth of his blankets and walks 2.5 miles to fetch water from the river. He has no choice. If Lito does not help the family, his mother would only have time to collect enough water for cooking — not enough for bathing, too. Lito could have...

Clean water is life: Improvements to wells in Zambia

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Samuel Mwanangombe in Causes

Samuel Mwinda Mwanangombe is World Vision’s design, monitoring, and evaluation officer for the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) program in Zambia. Samuel has worked for World Vision for three years, motivated by the opportunity to improve the quality of life for vulnerable and marginalized people — especially orphans, widows, and those with disabilities — by helping them realize their own potential to be agents of change. He is dedicated to WASH because he’s seen firsthand the changes it has produced in communities and the lives of children. Samuel has seen God work through the WASH sector in Zambia, providing those in need with clean water, improved sanitation, and hygiene education to sustain their lives. Here, Samuel shares an example of...

Dirty water for now — but clean water is in the works

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Rachael Dill Boyer in Causes

Water: It’s such a simple thing, but if you don’t have enough, it takes over your life. That’s what 13-year-old Zinhle Dlamini told me. Getting water for her family in rural Swaziland is a two-hour-per-day chore. And the dirty water they get is not nearly enough for all the drinking, cooking, cleaning, and bathing for a household of 10 people....

Q&A with our clean water expert in Uganda

Posted on March 10, 2012 by Rachael Dill Boyer in Causes

Leading up to World Water Day on March 22, we’re going to do a series of posts about our work in the area of water and sanitation, giving you some ideas of how to get involved. Back in November, I got to see some of our clean water programs in northern Uganda, a place that is still scarred by decades of brutal civil war with Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). I never knew how complex the solution to the problem of clean water could be — but I got to learn from some experts and ask a lot of questions. One of the most informative conversations I had was with John Steifel, World Vision’s Uganda water, sanitation, and hygiene...

Why water makes the difference: A tale of two towns

Posted on February 18, 2012 by Lauren Fisher in Disaster Relief

What does clean water mean to you? How often do you think about it? In her fourth blog entry, World Vision’s Lauren Fisher compares two communities in Niger — one that has a safe source of water, and one that does not. Follow Lauren’s trip here on our blog or @WorldVisionNews (#wvlauren) for live, on-the-ground reports from the field. * * * Lately, you could say water has become a major obsession of mine. In the past, I’ve taken it for granted. It’s the back-up beverage when I can’t find iced tea or soda; it’s the bath I can count on at the end of a long day. But as one colleague told me, in Zinder, water is precious. For...