background

Healthy Villages

COMMUNITies TRANSFORMed BY HEALTH AND HOPE

EMPOWERED LEADERS

ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY

TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES

Empowering people to create thriving villages and lasting change

Real transformation can only come from within a community. Lifewater works with the strengths and skills already present in a village, empowering leaders to create lasting change from within.

When local leaders encourage their neighbors to make life-saving sanitation and hygiene changes, the entire village rises. Children become healthy. Mothers and fathers have more time to work, and safe water flows in abundance from the community water source.

What is a Healthy Village?

 

Community-Led Total Sanitation

Our staff helps communities to realize how their current practices are making them sick. The process creates communities who are knowledgeable about their health and willing to make critical changes.

 

Trained Local Leaders

Local leaders undergo a series of trainings to become water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) facilitators. Once certified, they’re assigned a group of homes, and they begin teaching families how to practice life-saving healthy habits and unite for safe water.

 

Water Committee

Villages elect respected leaders responsible for collecting user fees and managing the new water source. Women are the most knowledgeable about water collection, so they hold at least 50% of the seats.

 

New Water Source

Once a village has made significant progress toward healthy homes, the water source can begin construction. Our team engineers a custom water source for that community, and construction begins.

 

Celebration

Becoming a Healthy Village is worthy of celebration! Villages may host a party and invite representatives from the government for speeches, official certificates, dancing, and a shared meal.

 

Lasting Change

Communities are encouraged to perform regular preventative maintenance on their water points to ensure safe water keeps flowing. And, should the water source need a quick repair, community leaders have funds saved and connections to local water technicians.

Clean Water and Healthy Habits
Prevent Cholera

 

“We are now an indirect beneficiary of what Lifewater has taught them… Similar tragedies can be avoided in the future by saving lives through more learning and changing.”

– Birobeire, Resident of Nakirimira Village, Uganda

In 2017, Birobeire buried his six-year-old son. A week later, he buried his wife. Both had symptoms of cholera for only two days before dying in Nakirimira village, Uganda.

Searching for answers, the widowed father reached out to Bukoba, a nearby village who seemed unaffected by common illnesses. Bukoba village practiced five healthy habits learned from Lifewater. They kept their floors swept, had a well for safe water, washed their hands before eating, and built their own restrooms to prevent the spread of feces. And they were healthy.

Village members saw the need in Nakirimira village and went there to teach them how to prevent the spread of disease. The cholera outbreak ceased, and it hasn’t returned since.

READ MORE >