Get Updates Donate
Menu

News

Safe Water for 313,000 Refugees

Nyarugusu Refugee Settlement
Nyarugusu Refugee Settlement
Posted June 28th, 2018 by Will Furlong, Regional Director Tanzania.

There are two seasons in Nyarugusu Refugee Settlement, one of mud and another of dust. We’ve been in the dusty season for only six weeks, but already the trees along the sides of roads are orange with red African soil, stirred up by countless aid trucks moving through the camp. Children love to play along these roads, or just sit and watch the trucks go by, so they become filthy from the dust—as do we. Water Mission has been working in Nyarugusu since September 2015 when we responded to an emergency need to supply safe drinking water to 30,000 refugees from ... Read More

Demystifying Solar-Powered Water Pumping

Posted June 21st, 2018 by Andrew Armstrong.

Solar pumping is the trendiest technology in rural water supply today. Much of the interest in solar pumping is motivated by the Sustainable Development Goal to increase water service levels in the most remote areas. A more compelling driver is that rural water users are willing to pay for service that is accessible near or within their homes. There is currently no more promising technology for meeting these expectations in off-grid settings than solar pumping. Despite this high interest and the fact that solar pumping technology has been around for decades, a great deal of misinformation is being ... Read More

Investing in Relationships: 2018 Indonesia Workshop

2018 Indonesia Workshop
2018 Indonesia Workshop
Posted April 5th, 2018 by Mackenzie Schiff.

Water Mission routinely organizes learning workshops for staff to identify strengths, challenges, and opportunities for improvement across global programs. Purposefully calling these “workshops” rather than “trainings,” Water Mission aims to emphasize the importance of two-way conversation. Charleston staff members attend to share updates from headquarters, gain insights from the field, and facilitate conversations focused on best practices. In January, staff from Charleston and Indonesia gathered for an engineering and community development workshop. They presented updates on strategy, global standards, innovations in engineering, and community development processes. At a breakout session, the group discussed complex obstacles and potential solutions for a few specific ... Read More

Puerto Rico | Powerful Solutions

Water Mission staff participate in training led by Grundfos.
Water Mission staff participate in training led by Grundfos.
Posted March 9th, 2018 by Jennie Reeb.

Since Hurricane Maria hit in September 2017, the people of Puerto Rico have been working diligently to recover. In San Juan, it is hard to tell a hurricane even hit the island. Yet all it takes is a harrowing two-hour drive into the countryside to realize that everything is not back to normal. Water Mission mobilized shortly after the storm hit, and initial assessments uncovered a unique need. With electricity knocked out for most of the island, there were hundreds of rural communities with intact water systems that were inoperable because there was no power available. Power is a part of ... Read More

Water Quality Testing: It’s Not Rocket Science!

Children draw safe water from their community's tap in Malawi.
Children draw safe water from their community's tap in Malawi.
Posted February 22nd, 2018 by Andrew Armstrong.

  We have previously written that Water Mission strongly supports the global shift of focus to “safely-managed” drinking water services. We believe all people deserve access to water that does not pose a risk to their health over a lifetime of use. From our founding, we have stressed the importance of ensuring that the water we supply is not only accessible, but safe. Of course, the only way to ensure that water is safe is to test it, even if it comes from a source that is assumed to be protected from outside contamination. Our experience ... Read More

Exposing the Hidden Groundwater Crisis with Remote Sensors

Posted January 17th, 2018 by Andrew Armstrong.

Groundwater is a critical resource for most people who live in rural areas of the world. To put it in perspective, around three in every five rural households in sub-Saharan Africa rely on aquifers accessed by hand dug or drilled wells as their primary water source. We have previously written that the common ideal of rural water supply in developing countries is shifting away from point-source handpumps towards higher volumes of water provided in more convenient locations, namely with higher-capacity groundwater pumping systems and piped distribution networks. While Water Mission supports this ideal and is actively working with government ... Read More