2021: A Year in Review
An overview of H2O4ALL’s perseverance and achievements throughout 2021.
As we start this new year, I’d like to highlight some of our organization’s greatest achievements in 2021. Through new and ongoing projects in Cuba, Kenya, Uganda, and the Dominican Republic, we were able to bring safe water access to hundreds of people and improve our partner communities’ defences against COVID-19.
One of our main goals for last year was the Clean Hands Initiative. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, H2O4ALL focused our efforts on providing safe water and sanitation resources to partner communities that were struggling to stay safe. The Clean Hands Initiative included projects in Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic, all geared toward providing vulnerable communities with the resources to protect themselves from the spread of COVID-19.
In communities without access to safe water, stopping the spread can be particularly hard; many families will rely on somebody to leave the house every day to get water. Since the nearest water source will likely be used by many other families, if not the whole community, the daily trip for water may make social distancing impossible.
Another massive problem is the issue of hygiene. As we all know by this point, handwashing is vital to stopping the spread of COVID-19. However, many water-stressed communities may need to forgo hygiene to save water. In addition, many of the benefits of handwashing are negated if a community has to rely on unsafe water sources. Washing one’s hands with unsafe water may lead to the transmission of contagious diseases instead of being a protective factor.
Through the projects in the Clean Hands Initiative, H2O4ALL was able to empower people in our partner communities to protect themselves and their communities from COVID-19 and improve their water and sanitation resources. In addition, the last year also saw the continuation of our food sustainability project in Mawotto Village, as well as renovations to our projects in Kenya and the Dominican Republic.
Kahama Village, Uganda
In one of this year’s first projects, H2O4ALL teamed up with our old partners in Uganda, Reach One Touch One Ministries. ROTOM is a nonprofit organization that supports impoverished seniors and their families in Uganda and Ethiopia. Many older adults in Uganda and Ethiopia are reliant on their younger relatives; however, thousands of seniors do not have families willing or able to take care of them. ROTOM provides them with medical and financial support, empowering them to live dignified and fulfilling lives.
Many of our previous partnerships with ROTOM have been in Kahama Village, a small rural community in the Kashambya region. Kahama is home to about 5,000 people, including more than one-fifth of the people ROTOM supports. Until recently, the nearest water source for the community was almost five kilometers downhill. With only a distant, unprotected water source for their needs, the community struggled with water deprivation and waterborne diseases — and COVID-19 presented an entirely new problem, especially for the village’s grandparents.
Kahama Village, a small town in the Kashambya sub-county, is home to about 1,500 families. Kahama Village is home to 1,500 families struggling with water deprivation, including hundreds of senior citizens. With the nearest water source being almost 5 kilometres downhill, Kahama struggles with water deprivation and waterborne diseases — and COVID-19 has presented an entirely new problem, especially for the village’s grandparents.
To address the problem, H2O4ALL and Reach One Touch One Ministries Uganda teamed up in the first half of the year to install a rainwater filtration system in the Kahama Village. With a safe, plentiful source of water, Kahama’s residents would be able to maintain hygiene and keep themselves and their families safe from COVID-19 — and they wouldn’t have to walk miles downhill for it.
On-ground implementation of the project began in the spring of last year. Our Uganda team was onsite in Kahama Village in May to oversee the installation of rainwater filtration systems at the community center and the primary center. In the first week of June, the project was officially open to the public.
The new water system has a 90,000 litres capacity and will provide the village with a steady source of safe, easily available water. For a town where the nearest natural water source is more than 4 kilometres downhill, the new water system will drastically improve the quality of life. Access to safe water should radically reduce the spread of waterborne diseases, and villagers will no longer have to make the long trip to find water for their families.
The rainwater collection project in Kahama Village was the subject of my first article on Medium back in April, while the project was in progress. You can read the story here.
Nabalanga Village, Uganda
The project at Kahama Village wasn’t our only partnership with Reach One Touch One Ministries last year. Close to Kahama, Nabalanga Village is home to many seniors who struggle to find enough water to get through the day. Many of these people don’t have family members who are willing or able to support them, while others may be the sole providers for their grandchildren.
Seniors in Nabalanga may need to take daily trips for water. The journey is often strenuous and dangerous, and the water they find is often unsafe. As a result, many seniors will go weeks without washing to save water. The lack of hygiene leaves seniors and their families vulnerable to disease, particularly risky during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last year, H2O4ALL and ROTOM teamed up to provide ten seniors in Nabalanga Village with rainwater filtration systems. With reliable safe water sources outside their own homes, Nabalanga’s seniors can provide for themselves and their families without putting themselves at risk.
Over the past year, we’ve been able to see how a single safe water source in the home could improve the life of a family. Seniors who have received rainwater collection systems have testified that the project has made their lives immeasurably safer and healthier.
One woman attested that they had been collecting water from a source in the middle of a forest, a dangerous trip that could take hours. Another said that she and her grandchildren used to pass a busy highway to find water, putting her family’s safety at risk every day. Thanks to the water systems set up by H2O4ALL and ROTOM, these seniors and their families can find water in the safety of their own homes.
Mulika Community, Kenya
Throughout the first half of the year, H2O4ALL was busy improving the water system in Mulika, Kenya. This small rural community in Meru County has been a partner community of H2O4ALL since 2017. The initial project provided the town with a borehole and a sanitation system, which was hugely beneficial to a community that had long been relying on unsafe water sources a long way away from the area. Later phases of the project in Mulika extended the community’s waterways so that the residents of Mulika had water access points at their police station, health clinic, and primary school.
Last year, H2O4ALL made several new additions to the Mulika water system. This year, our first project in Mulika was part of the Clean Hands Initiative. To help prevent the spread of COVID-19, H2O4ALL extended the waterline to Mulika Market in February. Handwashing stations were also set up around the market to practice protective hygiene while working or shopping in the market. With better water access and sanitation, Mulika was much better equipped to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Our Kenya team was onsite in Mulika again that Spring to renovate the community’s water pump. The effort to convert the pump from conventional power to solar power ran from the end of April to early May. By switching to solar energy, we made the water system at Mulika more reliable and more efficient.
Later that year, H2O4ALL partnered with the Kenya Water for Health Organization to educate the Mulika community on maintaining safe water sources to make sure that the community’s safe water access lasts for a long time. Petronila Musonye, a representative of KWAHO, and our Kenya liaison Francis Mutua led a training session on water maintenance and hygiene, including explanations of water pollution, signs of waterborne disease, and how community members can prevent water contamination of safe water sources. They also discussed methods of purifying water and the importance of water in hygiene.
Thanks to H2O4ALL’s work in Mulika, the community has a reliable and robust water system. This year, we built on that system to empower the community to face a difficult year and ensure that the water system would keep working efficiently for a long time.
Mawotto Village, Uganda
H2O4ALL’s work in Mawotto Village began in 2020 with the installation of a safe water system near Tom and Margaret Carroll Memorial Education Center. The education center, affiliated with Cape of Good Hope Orphan Care and Family Support, provides an education and a home to more than 300 orphans and children from broken homes in Mawotto and the surrounding area. During the project, H2O4ALL workers visited the school and saw that the school staff had difficulties providing for the children. Children were sleeping in cramped, dirty conditions within the school, and there was a need for sustainable and healthy food.
The food sustainability project at Tom and Margaret Education Center started later that year. In the project’s initial phase, which our Uganda liaison Zac Mulawa led, we planted 200 banana plants, over 50 fruit trees, corn for two seasons, cassava, groundnuts, and beans.
In 2021, the school began to benefit from the food sustainability project. The first harvest of beans and groundnuts occurred in July, and a second crop later that year. The first banana harvest happened in November. Later last year, the school also began expanding the banana plantation and the vegetable garden to continue to provide food for its children in the future.
In March of last year, another contribution to Tom and Margaret was the bunk beds. During our previous projects at Mawotto Village, members of the H2O4ALL team saw children sleeping on the floor together in cramped and unsanitary spaces. Many of the children said that the sleeping conditions at the school were affecting their health and their studies. In addition, the crowded conditions made contagion dangerously easy, especially during the pandemic.
H2O4ALL decided to change that. In March, we began fundraising for bunk beds and mattresses so that the children would have somewhere to sleep. Last year, we delivered several bunk beds to the school.
The project at Mawotto Village was one of the projects H2O4ALL showcased at our Share A Drop Gala in October of last year.
Loma and Cangrejo, Dominican Republic
Since 2011, H2O4ALL’s partnerships with Wine to Water and Servant’s Heart Ministries have allowed us to bring safe water access to thousands of families. By distributing safe water filters and setting up strategic water access points, we’ve been able to improve the quality of life for hundreds of thousands of people in impoverished rural communities with limited safe water access.
Through 2021, our focus in the Dominican Republic was to empower our partner communities to make it through the pandemic safely. For many families in the DR, help came in the form of ceramic filters. H2O4ALL and Wine to Water provided families in Cangrejo, Bayacanes, and Baitoa with safe water filters and soap. With access to safe water, families could maintain protective hygiene and avoid spreading the virus to their families or neighbors.
In addition, schools and medical centers in Villa Altagracia, Valverde Mao, and Moca also received water access points and hygiene resources. Not only did this mean these places could operate safely throughout the pandemic without fear of spreading COVID-19, but many were also able to provide water to their communities. Ten different schools throughout the region received safe water and soap so that children and staff could work safely without getting sick or passing the virus on to their families.
Finally, H2O4ALL and Wine to Water continued to provide Dominican families with safe water access through ceramic safe water filters. The distribution of these filters has been our largest reaching project to date, providing safe water to more than 100,000 Dominican families — nearly a half of a million people in total — since it began in 2012. One of Wine to Water’s filters can provide a family of five with a reliable safe water source in their own home for up to seven years. And as the pandemic continues to spread, the need for safe water in the home has been direr than ever.
Our work in the Dominican Republic, along with Mawotto Village in Uganda, Mulika Village in Kenya, and Tsopoli Village in Ghana, was one of the projects we featured in our Share A Drop Gala this year.
Cienfuegos District, Cuba
H2O4ALL has been working with Assemblies of God in Cuba for more than five years now. Since 2015, we’ve provided faith communities around the Cienfuegos district with safe water access. Faith communities have been indispensable in this project; with churches acting as access points, thousands of people can find reliable safe water sources in their communities.
These access points have proved invaluable to thousands of people in Cienfuegos throughout the pandemic. While many people have been unable to go out and buy water, faith communities have been open, and members of those communities have been able to rely on water sources close to home, with the knowledge that that water is safe to use. In addition, each water source includes handwashing stations with soap, allowing community members to maintain protective hygiene.
Throughout the pandemic, these stations have proved invaluable to communities in Cienfuegos. Many people have been unable to go out and buy water, but the faith communities have been open to help community members. Each water source includes a handwashing station, allowing people to maintain protective hygiene.
Even aside from the pandemic, these water access points were a blessing to many people in the Cienfuegos District in the aftermath of Hurricane Elsa last summer. Immediately after the storm, many Cubans found themselves without shelter, electricity or water access and could not buy water or other necessities. However, the churches were there to lend a hand, providing water to people who had nowhere else to go. People came from far and wide after the hurricane to collect water.
Faith communities have always been an indispensable part of H2O4ALL’s work in Cuba. By providing water access to faith communities in Cienfuegos, we can help increase safe water access for whole communities and improve the lives of hundreds of people. In addition, we can empower these faith communities to support their communities, whatever happens in the future.
Throughout 2021, we utilized our incredible partnerships to provide our partner rural communities with safe water and sanitation, improving hundreds of lives and empowering people in our communities to keep each other safe throughout the pandemic. This year, we will continue promoting safe water and sanitation access in water-stressed areas, helping our partner communities stay safe from disease, and making a difference, one drop at a time.
