About Us
Our Mission
We are committed to ending water poverty and aid dependency in Malawi for under-served and isolated populations.
Our innovative business led approaches, supporting local water entrepreneurs, help us develop practically sustainable solutions to improving water access for poor communities, householders, and farmers. Empowering people to improve their own lives.
We also invest in future generations by providing community water sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities, enabling children to survive, thrive and play.
Where We Work
We operate in Malawi, one of the poorest countries in the world. Malawi’s population stands at around 19 million, and half of these people are living below the poverty line.
Why Malawi?
50%
of community water points are non functional
40%
of the population are food insecure
42%
of under 5s experience stunting due to malnutrition
Our Story
Founded in 1998, we have been delivering clean water in sub-Saharan Africa for more than 20 years. This has allowed us to rigorously monitor and evaluate our projects and constantly improve our work.
In order to be a more impactful and sustainable organisation, we focus on four areas. One of which is investing in future generations, by supporting Malawi’s pre-school nurseries with the installation of water pumps, toilets and kitchen gardens. This gives young children the best start in life by having a clean and safe environment in which they can learn, grow and play.
But we realised that aid as we knew it simply was not working, and in some areas, a different approach is needed. So, we decided to be the change and implemented a business approach to our work. Our research showed that rural communities wanted to invest in their own water supply, and had the means to.
This led to the creation of network of water entrepreneurs, our pump investment scheme for farmers and households, and our repair and maintenance initiative.
Our Programme Areas
Beyond Water
In 2018, we established our social enterprise Beyond Water, to develop and grow our repair and maintenance community pump service and our low cost pump sales for home and farm.
Beyond Water combines business approaches with high levels of social impact. It aims to provide financially sustainable solutions to access to water challenges for poor rural communities. Promoting empowerment and ending aid dependency.
Awards
We are proud to have been recognised by official awarding bodies for delivering sustainable water solutions in Malawi. We were the winner for 2017 International Development Charity Award, Highly Commended in the Financial Times 2018 Transformational Business Awards, a finalist for the 2018 Bond International Development Awards, and shortlisted for the 2017 Aid Innovation Challenge.
Wider Recognition
Our work has also been recognised by officials in Malawi. In 2021, our team met Lobin Lowe, the Minister for Agriculture, who was impressed with our initiative helping farmers access irrigation. Malawi’s First Lady Monica Chakwera, who praised our work.
