Yesterday morning the chapel service at World Vision headquarters in Federal Way featured WaterAfrica’s very own Diane Savage!
The first part of the service honored Donald Hubbs, the former President of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. In the late 1980s, Mr. Hubbs and the Hilton Foundation formed a partnership with World Vision to bring clean water to the country of Ghana in unprecedented scale. That partnership has grown and now extends further into West Africa.
With the strong financial backing of the Hilton Foundation, World Vision’s WASH model developed through these years and is now the basis of World Vision’s For Every Child Campaign.
- Since 1986, World Vision has brought clean water to 11 million people.
- For Every Child WASH Campaign intends to increase that number to 16 million by 2016.
- Since 1986, access to clean water has saved 907,000 lives.
- For Every Child WASH Campaign intends to increase that number to 1.25 million by 2016.
Mr. Hubbs addressed the World Vision staff in attendance yesterday by saying that when the Hilton Foundation initially began this partnership they believed that providing access to clean water was simply about providing expertise and resources to drill a bunch of holes, create platforms, and attach hand pumps. What they quickly realized was that the real transformation and hard work occurred AFTER the wells were installed. He praised World Vision for developing a holistic, sustainable WASH model that includes village input, committees, training, and a plan for sustainability.
Diane Savage, co-founder of WaterAfrica, then spoke to the chapel audience. She told about three women she’s met in Zambia and how access to clean, potable water has changed their lives in specific, personal ways. Diane used the concept of transforming dead water to living water in order to illustrate how these women’s lives have been transformed. Her stories were a beautiful illustration of how a large technical program can bring very powerful, intimate change to a specific woman and her family.
This story is repeated all across Africa every day and WaterAfrica is proud to support this work.
