Water Mission awarded $1 million to serve Tanzania and Uganda

The Coca-Cola Foundation has awarded Water Mission a $1 million grant so that the nonprofit can continue its efforts of providing safe water to areas in need across the world.

This is the first time that Water Mission has partnered with the Coca-Cola Foundation.

Water Mission is a “Christian engineering nonprofit that builds safe water, sanitation, and hygiene solutions in developing countries and disaster areas.”

The Coca-Cola Foundation is the philanthropic arm of the Coca-Cola Company to make a “difference in communities around the world by investing in transformative ideas and institutions that address some of our most pressing global challenges.” The organization has awarded over $1.5 billion in grants to support different initiatives around the world like the one Water Mission applied to and received.

This $1 million grant will be put towards a two-year program in Tanzania and Uganda. Water Mission’s goal is to serve over 53,000 people with safe water in the two countries over two years.

Water Mission partners with local and national governments to identify the geographic areas in which access to safe water is the most dire and then focus their project efforts in those regions.

The organization uses solar-powered water systems that provide energy through a pump that moves water through treatment equipment based on the water quality and what it needs.

This can be things like a water disinfection system, or a filtration system - whatever the water needs - just aiming to make sure that the water meets the World Health Organization standards.

Water Mission studied in Tanzania and found that in most communities, the majority of people fetching water are women and girls. They found that they are spending over an hour each day fetching water for their communities that is often not clean or even safe to drink.

David Inman, Senior Director of Global Partnerships for Water Mission, says that the lack of safe water impacts the lives of the people in these countries so much. He says that making it more accessible to them allows the people in these areas to have more time to focus on themselves, contributing to breaking the cycle of poverty.

“When we bring safe water access into their community, they don’t have to spend that time each day and they could put that towards productive use, education, work opportunities - it really has a deep impact on these communities,” Inman says.

The lack of safe water impacts every part of their lives. Children miss school due to illnesses from the water. Parents spend hours collecting water which takes away from their time to provide for their families. Inman says these projects can change the lives of many. Inman says that their long-term goal with these projects is to provide people in these areas with safe water forever so that this is never an issue.

“Our long-term goal for our work is that once a safe water program and project is brought to a community that safe water access is going to be with that community for many, many years to come. So, sustained access to safe water,” he says is the goal.

He says that seeing firsthand what these projects bring to these communities is incredible. He says that the people in these areas are almost always very proud to have these projects.

“When you see the way it transforms a community in a developing country - where perhaps they’ve never had access to safe water - you can see the joy it brings to families, you can see the way kids are able to spend more time in school, not getting water every day, it really has a huge impact on the community,” Inman says.

Since 2001, Water Mission has been able to serve over eight million people throughout 60 different countries. The organization’s global headquarters are in North Charleston, but they have over 400 people stationed in Africa, Asia, and North, South and Central America.