Just a Drop

Just a Drop is an international development organisation working to bring sustainable safe water, sanitation, and hygiene projects to communities around the world, transforming lives.

Current Focus Areas

Just a Drop’s project work is currently focused in Cambodia, India, Kenya, Nicaragua, Uganda and Zambia. We have reached nearly two million people in 33 countries since we began in 1998.We work with communities to implement solutions which best suit their needs, such as rainwater harvesting systems, wells, sand dams, biosand filters, latrines, and sanitation and hygiene training. We’ve also developed food security, menstrual health and micro-finance programmes, which further support community development and economic growth.

The Importance of Safe Water

There is nothing more important than safe water. Safe water changes everything. It improves health, education, women’s rights, leads to secure food sources, economic growth and brighter futures. It completely transforms lives, especially those of women and children.

With safe water, the area will achieve long-term, positive benefits, improving lives. A broken borehole in an area where safe water is scarce is a tragedy for communities.

Fundraising needs

The funds raised from David and Ioana’s Mount Toubkal Challenge will be invaluable to us at Just a Drop and the communities that we work with.

The support from their epic journey will help us to further our work in the arid and remote Mumbwa District in the Central Province of Zambia where people experience true poverty caused by a lack of safe water. Communities are forced to collect water from a hand dug well and streams that are shared with livestock and ponds that appear during the rainy season.

Women and girls endure long treks to collect water and face dangerous obstacles including attacks from elephants who frequent the region. On the way back, the journey is even worse, as on top of these dangers, they are forced carry a heavy jerry can with them.

The situation causes a huge gender imbalance where girls are often forced to drop out of school with a need to prioritise household chores, and women are unable to contribute to family finances; keeping them in a devastating cycle of poverty.

The International Institute for Environment and Development estimates that 50,000 boreholes across rural Africa are broken down and no longer in use. In Mumbwa District alone, there are 342 non-functioning boreholes. These were constructed some years ago and crucially at that point, the local community weren’t involved in the process. Over the years, as the boreholes stopped working, there was nobody able to do the repairs and the community couldn’t afford to have them fixed.

Thanks to David and Ioana, this will no longer be the case. Just a Drop will work directly with communities in the district to teach them how to repair and then maintain these broken boreholes. With these skills, the communities will be able to access a sustainable source of safe water for years to come.