Water

It is hard to imagine a day without access to clean water, but this is still a reality for many people in our world.

We like to prioritise water because it is relatively easy to have an enormous impact on people’s lives.

Consider the energy and time saved if collecting a pail of water is a 15 minute job rather than an arduous 2 or 3 hour one — not to mention the time and money saved on trips to health clinics because of tummy bugs.

In some cases we are able to pipe water into people’s homes (we currently supply 115 households directly).

Happy Chinyama Village members accessing water within their village for the first time

Our work over the last 5 years in water and sanitation has been found to reduce waterborne infections, free up significant time for women, increase school attendance for girls and reduce household expenses.

In 2023 this directly benefited 2,355 people who have gained access to safe water and/or improved sanitation facilities, on top of the thousands of people who are already benefiting from services extended in previous years.

Our goal was for all households in our impact area to access safe water within 1km of their home. We have achieved 70% of households.

“This community used to experience many cases of diarrhoea. This is no longer the case because of better access to safe water and sanitation.”— Female project participant

An essential component in water supply is sustainability. Drilling a new borehole in a remote village is only the beginning — there are questions that must be answered like, who will maintain the water supply, how will they do it and how will it be resourced?

The approach since 2018 is showing to be a sustainable one, where a water point management committee is trained to manage the water resource — collecting funds from users, making repairs and keeping water points clean and well maintained.

“As a community we raise our own funds through household contributions. These funds are used to buy the spare parts needed.”— Male project participant

Significant efforts were also made in 2023 to increase the capacity of communities to support girls with sustainable menstrual hygiene solutions. Women and girls were trained in making reusable pads, and some have been able to create a business out of it.

Participants of one of many reusable sanitary pad workshops

New girl’s toilet block going up

Hope Water Ltd

Hope Water is a social enterprise owned 50% by Hope for a Child. The company supplies piped water to 1,183 households via public and private water points.

Supplying affordable piped water as a commercial company rather than a donor, and to customers rather than aid beneficiaries, is a hugely empowering transition.

We are able to help people access services that are of a higher quality and level of sustainability, whilst being more empowering for communities.

A Hope Water private connection customer

In 2023 we entered a new area of business and invested in a drilling rig. In the second half of the year we drilled 20 boreholes under contract. This area of business is being developed to provide revenue for expanding the piped water system to more users, while providing a crucial service to Malawian communities.

Although a steep learning curve with many challenges met, we are confident that this will be a high impact, fruitful business venture.

Hope Water drilling team

Livelihoods & Food Security

Over the last 5 years our strategy for economic empowerment focused on informal financial services, training in business and agriculture, cooperatives and loans of livestock and seed.

This has been complemented by activities to improve food and nutrition security, such as the distribution of fruit trees, training in nutrition and meal preparation and construction of community grain banks.

As a package, these interventions have had profound impacts on the general welfare of participating families, including the 3,916 households taking part in 2023.

Kang’ung’uza cooperative is venturing into producing sweet potato flour and dried spices. They have been provided with the seed to get started.

The findings of the project evaluation in this area were encouraging. This is what some of the participants have to say…

“We were given bean seed to improve food and nutrition security, which has benefited everyone here. We are now healthy and can afford to sell some of the beans and to support our families and pay school fees for our children.” — Female project participant

“Each household received a goat and two rabbits. This initiative has greatly helped in improving our income and we can support our children. Also these livestock are giving manure for our fields causing increased crop yields.” —Female project participant

A happy pig recipient

Participants spoke about the success of the community grain banks, which have not only united the community but are helping to smooth seasonal volatility of food prices and improve nutrition. These are secure community managed facilities where members can store their harvest, safe from post-harvest damage and theft. We have constructed 3 in the past 5 years and they have been shown to significantly improve household food security.

“With the coming of grain banks, we are able to feed our children and they can concentrate on school. Our children are now healthy.” — Male project participant

Project participants are expressing gratitude for the various cooking lessons received, enabling diet diversification. Excitingly, children have begun to ask their parents for food from the six food groups they have learned about.

“We now understand the importance of balancing our daily food intake and identifying the different food groups. We are more aware of our dietary choices and are working towards improving them.” — Female project participant

“We were taught how to prepare nutritious and affordable meals using local ingredients, for example cassava patties with eggs, onions, and green pepper.” — Female project participant

SPRODETA Agribusiness

Through a social enterprise jointly owned with our partner SPRODETA, in 2023 we purchased 55 tonnes of maize, soya, beans, rice and peanuts from 318 smallholders at a fair price, providing them with an important income stream.

The business also trained 387 smallholder farmers in business management and entrepreneurship and provided loans of seed to 296 smallholder farmers.

The Agribusiness team outside the newly constructed processing centre.

Produce purchased from smallholders in storage.

Susan’s experience is an example of how people are benefiting from the integration of business into our work.

Where Susan lives, the norm is for families to struggle to meet their own basic needs like food, safe housing and clean water. As I would, many accept this as their lot — it is what they are used to.

Our partner SPRODETA helped Susan realise this may not have to be the case, enabling her and some fellow community members to establish a Village Bank and learn about saving and investing.

Susan made a plan to save up to invest in a money-making engine that would catapult her family into a new realm of living. 

Putting aside a little each week, she accumulated enough to buy all the farming inputs she needed to step up her farming to commercial proportions. She worked hard, and at the end of the season harvested a huge 2.5 tonnes of the staple food crop in her community — maize.