Empower African Women with Clean Water in Schools

You can help empower women by providing clean water, toilets and washing stations for schools in East Africa.

The UN estimates that over 783 million people do not have access to clean water and almost 2.5 billion do not have access to adequate sanitation. Women and girls are affected the most by the lack of clean water because they can spend up to 8 hours a day fetching water, doing water-related chores, and taking care of family members who fall ill from contaminated water. When women can't work and girls can't go to school, the cycle of poverty continues.

Global Women's Water Initiative (GWWI) trains village women to provide professional water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services to their communities. This year, GWWI is working with cohort of 16 teams of women in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. GWWI women are able to build a variety of technologies like rainwater harvesting catchments, water storage tanks, water filters, toilets and washing bays to meet all the needs of their community—especially schools.

GWWI women build all of these technologies in schools to ensure that the children can stay in school and focus on their studies. Without water and sanitation, children have to fetch water before coming to school. They have to defecate in the fields when there are no toilets. Girls miss a week of school or drop out entirely when going through puberty because there are no water or cleaning facilities when they get their periods. Help GWWI meet their goal of training women to construct technologies that will provide 30 schools and approximately 10,000 students in East Africa with clean water and sanitation. All the technologies will be built out of local materials to ensure affordability, sustainability, and easy maintenance.

Earth Island Institute is a non-profit, public interest, membership organization that supports people who are creating solutions to protect our shared planet. Earth Island institute is the fiscal sponsor for The Global Women's Water Initiative. The Global Women's Water Initiative (GWWI) is building a movement of local women water experts to address the issue that affects them the most: water. GWWI equips grassroots women with the skills and tools to bring sustainable water solutions to schools and health facilities in Sub-Saharan Africa to tackle the health and violence risks, and lost income and educational opportunities associated with the lack of safe water and sanitation in their own communities. GWWI conducts a multi-year training program to transform women from passive recipients of failed water projects to Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) providers bringing clean water and sanitation to local schools and health facilities. Women gain the expertise to become technicians, trainers, and social entrepreneurs. GWWI uses water as an entry point to strengthen women's leadership. Women are taking the lead bringing demand-driven income-generating services to solve their local water issues—bringing health, wealth, and H2ope to their families and communities.