Friendly Water for the World

friendlywater.org

Friendly Water for the World is a Quaker non-profit that seeks to provide clean water, health education, and more in vulnerable communities around the world. They write, “Our mission is to expand global access to low-cost clean water technologies and information about health and sanitation through knowledge-sharing, training, community-building, peacemaking, and sustainability. We empower communities abroad to take care of their own clean water needs, even as we empower people here to make a real difference.” 


Friendly Water for the World is initiating its first efforts in southern Zambia. Partnering with Friends of Monze (a Quaker‐founded UK charity based in South Wales and working in the Monze district in Zambia), Friendly Water is working with the Zambia Women and Girls Foundation (ZWaGF) to set up programs to fabricate BioSand water filters, rainwater catchment systems, non‐fired soil‐stabilized bricks, and to expand permaculture efforts.

The team is headed by Eric Lung’aho Lijodi—Friendly Water’s Africa program manager from Kakamega Friends Church (Kenya)—and several others from Tanzania.

Southern Zambia is experiencing extreme drought as a result of climate change. Rivers and streams have dried up; wells are running dry; and there is almost no water at Victoria Falls. Hunger is rampant. The ZWaGF community is helping to expand the efforts of local schools, sustained by Friends of Monze, to grow food effectively. The brickmaking, which eliminates the need for firewood to fire the bricks, will provide bricks for the bases of the rainwater catchment systems, to build MicroFlush toilets, and to improve housing and school infrastructure.

This is a long‐term initiative supported by Quakers worldwide. In the future, Friendly Water expects to expand this effort in partnership with the American Friends Service Committee Zimbabwe office.