As trustees we support the charity WaterHarvest and have just received their Impact Report for 2023.
For us WaterHarvest tick many boxes. They are a locally (Winchester) run charity, have low overheads, work in the developing world, provide water to local communities, aim for a low environmental impact and help to empower women.
The core purpose is to work through local voluntary organisations in Africa to provide access to clean drinking water. This is such a fundamental need that its provision can boost health, education outcomes and generate work.
In Uganda the charity’s water harvesting tanks installed in 9 schools has provided 29 people with work and boosted school attendence amongst girls by 30%. Their local contractors are also very careful to minimise their environmental impacts, for instance by using compressed building blocks rather than kiln dried ones.
‘With your eyes, you can see the difference. Pupils are super excited to have water at school.’ – Local project manager Uganda
In the UK we take water for granted as a basic right but the United Nations estimates that 2.2billion people are still living without safe drinking water. The UN has made water one of their 17 global sustainable development goals.
We are looking forward to continuing to work with Waterharvest in the future.
