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Just a Drop is an international water development charity with a very simple plan: to give people access to clean water.
It was founded in 1998 by Fiona Jeffery OBE when she learned that just £1 could provide water for a child for 10 years...
Just a Drop is an international water development charity with a very simple plan: to give people access to clean water. It was founded in 1998 by Fiona Jeffery OBE when she learned that just £1 could provide water for a child for 10 years. Fiona named the charity ‘Just a Drop’ to reinforce the premise that if people can be encouraged to give a little then, collectively, we can make a huge difference.
To date, Just a Drop has provided clean, safe water to some of the poorest communities in over 30 countries worldwide and we are delighted to have chosen them as our Worthy Cause for 2016. Our contribution is to part-fund a project that will bring safe, clean water to 226 secondary school children in the Makueni County of Kenya, located about 3 hours to the South East of Nairobi. The area is rural and subject to frequent droughts.
Molemuni Secondary School has no water and relies on the children bringing water with them every day, collected an hour’s walk away. The journey is dangerous to attack from animals and people. When there is no water available, the school buys water in at considerable expense. In either case, the water is not clean or safe and leads to the children missing a lot of school due to sickness.
This project aims to provide a water tank to harvest rain water from the school roof during the two Kenyan rainy seasons. Its capacity is such that it will provide year-round safe and clean water for drinking, cooking lunches, and for hygiene purposes. The Project will also provide sanitation and hygiene education – encouraging the children to wash their hands to prevent the spread of infection, which is obviously a topic close to our heart!
Previous projects of this type have provided the following benefits:
The tank will last for a minimum of 30 years, so many more pupils will also benefit well into the future. Just a Drop monitors the project for 7 years, to ensure the full impact is achieved.
We look forward to reporting on the progress of this excellent project and the improvements that it will undoubtedly bring to so many lives in the years to come.
Can you spare some change? Even the smallest contribution can make a big difference. There are a number of ways by which you can donate to Just a Drop and help make a difference.