We believe the water crisis is best solved by those most impacted by it - women.
What We Do
We give women, the primary water gatherers in Africa, the resources they need to repair wells themselves. We start with successful women entrepreneurs and add in-depth business training, well-repair expertise, and water well committee development training. Now with more than 30 self-sustaining teams, hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese are seeing their wells repaired in days instead of months and years.
All for just about $1,250/borehole. It's local, efficient, and done.
Julia Asunta, Well Mechanic
Why women and water is smart
WOMEN MAKE THINGS HAPPEN – Women care about water. They want their kids to be healthy and their daughters to be in school. They own the responsibility of the wells in their community, and this would only broaden that responsibility.
FROM CHARITY TO EQUITY – Something as important as water should not rely on organizations that can potentially lose funding or pack up their bags. With the tools they need to repair wells, trained women can keep repairing wells long after organizations have moved on.
IT’S GOOD FOR THE LOCAL ECONOMY – A woman with well-repair expertise is a small business. There are thousands of wells in disrepair in South Sudan alone, so there’s more than enough demand. Every repair puts money into the hands of a woman-owned small business, which boosts the local economy.
IT’S SCALABLE – Dozens of woman-led repair teams repairing wells, it’s not just inspiring, it’s smart. With this model, we could repair every well in South Sudan.
IT’S REPEATABLE - Like all machines, wells will break. The more they are used, the more they will break. These local businesses will be there, year after year, to meet the need. Women, local, scalable, repeatable - now that is smart.
