Stories of Impact
Lasting water and sanitation systems don’t build themselves – people build them. Meet the community leaders, entrepreneurs, and families working alongside Water For People to make safe water a reality for Everyone Forever.
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- Bolivia
- Guatemala
- Honduras
- India
- Malawi
- Peru
- Rwanda
- Sanitation
- Schools
- Tanzania
- Uganda
- Water
- Women & Girls
(New) A Girl’s Future Starts With Water
In rural Peru, safe water is transforming daily life: protecting children’s health, keeping girls in school, and giving families time to work, learn, and thrive. Through community leadership and local ownership, sustainable water systems are creating opportunities that last for generations.
A Better Toilet,
a Better Life
a Better Life
Folomina’s face lights up when she talks about her toilet. Two years ago, the state of water and sanitation in Folomina’s village was dire. She and the other 20 families in her community would walk two hours each day for water. The sanitation situation was just as bad.
A changed life…
through emptying latrines
through emptying latrines
"Do not look down on any job, even pit emptying," says Isaac.
This job has revolutionized Isaac’s life. And beyond earning a better living for himself and his family, he’s a part of transforming Kampala into a clean, healthy city.
A Dream of
Safe Water
Safe Water
"It was like a dream to us," says Lilian. She says the people in her community never thought they would have safe water. "We used to wake up very early in the morning to go fetch water," Lilian says. She and others in her community in Gicumbi District, Rwanda would lose hours each day walking to fetch water for the day’s tasks.
More Time Means
Better Education
Better Education
"My school uniform had lost its original color," says 13-year-old Martin. The river water his family had to use was so dirty, it discolored all of their clothes and even changed the color of their food.
The Impact
of Saved Time
of Saved Time
Beatrice and her neighbors have an acute understanding of the value of time. Three years ago, women and children in her community of Ngoma in Rulindo District, Rwanda, were losing hours every day fetching water from an unprotected spring.
There’s something
extraordinary in the water
extraordinary in the water
Sweetly sleeping, two-year-old Solange lays contentedly in her mom’s arms. Marie Louise’s other children are at school. This scene, almost serene, feels very different from what Marie Louise says life looked like a few years ago. A few years ago, her village didn’t have a safe water source.
A Business in Bathrooms
Avelino turned his construction skills into more than a job – he’s become a sanitation champion in his Guatemalan community. What started as a way to support his family has grown into a mission to improve health and opportunity one bathroom at a time – and a thriving business that meets a real need.
A Community’s Pride in Safe Water
The Rugarama Village sits between hills and valleys in the southwestern region of Uganda, within the Kamwenge District. In this community, approximately 80 households were using one borehole as a water source. However, the pipes broke down and the village was left without safe water.
A Sanitation Revolution
Pablo Terceros Vargas is sparking a sanitation revolution in his rural community in Bolivia. Pablo has lived in the district of Tiraque, Bolivia for his entire life. For the first 32 years of his life, he didn’t have a bathroom.
A Start-Up Changing the Bathroom Experience
Fuller Cruzado grew up in rural Peru, where using a bathroom was often uncomfortable. Rather than accept it, he set out to change the experience. He founded Brixsan, a local business that develops biological solutions. With support from Water For People, entrepreneurs like Fuller are bringing new sanitation solutions to rural communities.
A Teacher Explains the Importance of Water
Jean is a teacher. "I like teaching! I was always excited to be a teacher," he shares, his passion evident. Jean began his career in Kigali, spending several years teaching…
A Village Transformed by Hope and Action
Growing up, Santana remembers watching her neighbors carry water every day. She never gave up hope that this would change.
Celebrating Hygiene
Everyone at this primary school in West Bengal, India knows that a successful student is a healthy student.
Changing Lives One Toilet at a Time
Seema Devi was married as a teenager. At this young age, she moved to her new husband’s village, away from her family. One of the biggest differences in this new village in the Sheohar district of northern India was that she no longer had a toilet in her home.
Chapananga is Open Defecation Free
The 216 villages in the Traditional Authority of Chapananga in Chikwawa District in Malawi have been declared open defecation free – a huge milestone for the district, and for Water For People.
Climate Change: Water Sustains Our Planet
By Grace Kanweri, Senior Program Officer, Water For People Uganda
Climate resilient water stewardship in Uganda’s Mpanga River protects communities, culture, and biodiversity.
Determination to Build a Bathroom
Dry and rough to the touch, Don Guillermo’s hands tell stories of sacrifice, hard work, and pride. With a shovel gripped tightly, and a smile across his face, the 66-year-old is determined to build his family a toilet.
Don Ángel: Protecting a District’s Water
Don Ángel went from being a zoologist who worked with livestock to leading the water and sanitation office in the province of Gran Chimu de Cascas in Peru.
Don Michael: Rebuilding a water system
Michael Sagastegui is the president of the water committee in Pampas de San Isidro in the district of Cascas, Peru. As committee president, he oversees maintenance and repair of the water system.
Doña Maria: Washed-away livelihood
High in Peru’s Andes Mountains, Maria Montalvo Arce grows grapes.
Well, most years she grows grapes. A year ago, the worst flooding Peru has experienced in a lifetime washed away nearly all of Maria’s harvest. The rain lasted for a month.
Education Starts with Bathrooms
"I’ve been to schools where the situation is bad." Prossy is a seventh-grade student in Uganda. She’s seen what it’s like when schools don’t have water or usable bathrooms. Prossy lives…
Emilienne a Champion for Hygiene
Emilienne Ahobantegeye began noticing a pattern with her children. "I used to see multiple cases of disease and frequently visited the local health center to treat my children. I attribute this to a lack of hygiene," she says. That realization motivated Emilienne to make a change.
Friends of Water
Debasis Mondal’s bright orange vest signifies the important role he plays in communities in his region of India. He’s a Jalabandhu – a "Friend of Water."
Hygiene Changes Everything
For Prisca, hygiene has changed everything. A mother of five, Pricsa lives in the Misanjo village in southern Malawi. She introduces herself with a huge smile. She is proud of her role in the community and the story she has to tell.
Inés, a Community Force
Growing up in rural Bolivia, Inés experienced the tension between her dreams for the future and the stark reality around her. "We had to limit our water use since it needed to last the whole month – we reused as much as possible. And because we didn’t have toilets, we would walk to look for remote places in the mountains and hills."
Local Water Guardians:
The Water
Sellers
Laban spends his days overseeing the local water point as community members fetch water. He is the water seller and caretaker of the local hand pump.
Water For People’s Water As A Business model employs water sellers like Laban.
Making Hygiene Fun
The community of Pachoj in Guatemala is 15 miles from the nearest town and challenging to get to – in the rainy season the trek to this tiny town can include more than a mile of walking along muddy roads that often become unpassable for cars. Because access to the town is so difficult, Pachoj lacks basic services like drinking water, sanitation, and electricity.
Maureen the Hand Pump Mechanic
On any given day, as she sees her kids off to school or prepares food for her family, Maureen could get a call from a community in her region. She’d drop everything in that moment, grab her tools, and head off on her bicycle.
Meet Luz
The late afternoon sun starts turning golden as Julia, Daniel, and Kimberly play in the fields surrounding their home just outside of Asunción, Peru. Their life is simple and sweet, and they like it that way. Their mom, Luz, says life didn’t always feel like this.
Meet Finalisi
Meet Finalisi. She’s a mother of four, a farmer, and a volunteer with an absolutely critical role: making sure clean water is available every day.
Meet Grace: Treating Patients With Clean Water
For Grace, every day at the Nghambi Health Clinic in Mpwapwa District, she balanced risk and necessity – treating patients while lacking access to both running water and proper sanitation. As…
Meet Hakika: Walking for Water before Sunrise
Imagine carrying the weight of water on your head for miles, after waking up at 2 am to walk to the source. For Hakika, that burden has shaped her life…
Meet Siuli
Meet Siuli. She’s a college senior in India creating a better future for young girls through access to safe water.
Meet Sixto
In rural Honduras, there aren’t sewage systems – a health and environmental risk. Sixto created a business to solve this sanitation problem.
Meet Teresa
Driven by wanting a different future for her daughters, Teresa organized the effort to get clean water to all the families in her community in Guatemala.
Meet Tumaini: Full Cups, Not Empty Desks
Picture a classroom with empty desks because children are walking for water instead of learning. Tumaini has seen this for years, and she is ready for it to change. …
Micrometers: A Simple Solution to Water Scarcity
In the small community of Llimbe in Peru, water sources were running dry. The idea proposed by the water committee was to add micrometers to each household’s water connection, however some in the community were skeptical.
No Longer the Forgotten Place
When Maria Lopez decided to move in with her husband’s family to the rural community of Nueva Esperanza in San Antonio de Cortés, Honduras, the residents there were on the verge of naming it "El Olvido"- the forgotten place.
One Tree at a Time
In Arbieto, Bolivia, climate change is making water sources more unpredictable and scarce. Water For People partnered with communities to build the Enchanted Forest tree nursery, producing tens of thousands of native seedlings that help slow rainfall, rebuild groundwater, and protect drinking water. This nature-based approach is strengthening water security one tree at a time – and creating resilience for generations.
Phaiyce is Persevering for Education
Phaiyce has persevered to reach secondary school. At 14, she’s preparing to take exams this year. Yet millions of students won’t reach this point in their education as they drop out due to poor school water, sanitation, and hygiene.
Prosperity Through Poop
John overcame poverty through poop businesses.
That’s right, you read that correctly.
"My parents were very poor," John says. "I tried to go to school but my uniforms were so torn that I looked almost naked. Friends would laugh at me, and I decided to stop school."
Queen of the Throne: A New Wave of Women Plumbers in Rural Bolivia
In rural Bolivia, women plumbers are breaking barriers and keeping clean water flowing. Their technical skills are vital for maintaining systems that communities rely on every day. It is encouraging news that the demand for plumbers is growing – as more families, schools, and clinics gain access to safe water and sanitation solutions.
Surviving Cholera and Changing the Future
Annie sits outside of her mud-plastered home, a small thatched canopy providing little respite from the Malawi heat. Her gaze focuses on some scribbled words on the side of her latrine: Tigwiritse Nchito Chimbuzi Moyenera Nthawi Zonse.
Let’s use the latrine properly at all times.
The Equation for Better Hygiene
Combine baking soda, oil, and extract from a local Malawian tree, and it equals better hygiene for an entire community.
The Girl Who Walked for Water, The Leader Who Brings It Home
From carrying water as a child to leading her community’s water system, Carmen’s story shows how women‑led leadership, reforestation, and local ownership brought safe, reliable water to La Tigra, Honduras, transforming health, education, and hope for future generations.
The Little Ministers of Hygiene
Today, these five little ministers take great pride in their positions and in their school. But that wasn’t always the case. In fact, it wasn’t long ago that the school was struggling due to a lack of access to safe water and clean bathrooms.
The Power of Sanitation in a Girl’s Education
Meet Lennie, a passionate young woman whose journey with Water For People began in 2015, when she was only 11 years old. That was the year Water For People built bathrooms, handwashing facilities, and menstrual hygiene management units to support students’ sanitation and hygiene needs at Lennie’s school, Chilomoni Primary.
The Sanitation Shop in Cascas
Water For People takes a market-based approach to sanitation. Rather than provide toilet hand-outs, we support entrepreneurs to provide sanitation products and services. This approach is more sustainable, and creates jobs and lifts local economies along the way.
The Shop Owner
Every day at 7 am, Cementi Mendozo opens his grocery store in a local trading center in Chikwawa District, Malawi.
The Toilet Seller
Dharanidhar Kumar has always been known as "DK" to his friends. But now he has a new nickname – The Toilet Seller.
Transforming Communities
"We had two springs we used for water, but they have dried up. The mayor brought water in a cistern once a week, but it was not enough. To wash clothes, we went to the river, but it was far away."
Turning Waste
into Fuel
In rural Uganda, Water For People is helping entrepreneurs tackle every part of the sanitation value chain, from constructing latrines and emptying them to transferring and treating fecal waste. In this last step – fecal waste treatment – Water For People is creating a true circular economy by repurposing waste.
Wate Brings Education
When communities don’t have access to water, children have to spend hours every day fetching water. In many cases this causes them to miss school and miss out on an education that could enable them to have a better future.
This is not the case for the kids in Kisaro Sector in rural Rwanda.
Water Access That Lasts – With Bananas
In the face of climate change and limited resources, this community came up with a solution to help fund the ongoing maintenance of their new water system: growing bananas.
Water Brings Health
Priscilla works at a health center in Kamwenge District, Uganda. She is the nurse in charge of the clinic and is responsible for ensuring any community members who need health services can receive them. When Priscilla started working at the clinic, there was no access to reliable and safe water, which made caring for patients very challenging.
Water Brings Opportunity
When she married ten years ago, Alphonsine moved to her new home in Rurembo Village, Gicumbi, a district in the north. As happy as she was to have married the love of her life, Alphonsine knew she would face one big challenge – accessing water.
Water Brings Prosperity
Didacienne had five children and no home of her own. Her husband died nearly 25 years ago in the Rwandan genocide, and after that she had few options to provide for her family – they lived with various family members to get by. And without water in their village, life was difficult.
Water Gives Dreams
When water arrived at Binaga School in the remote countryside of Rwanda, it gave students the future. It provided the foundation for them to dream.
Water Gives Time
The village of Banashyam Nagar is in eastern India – nearly as far to the east in the country as you can go. It lies in the vast delta on the Bay of Bengal, formed by the confluence of several major rivers. Bright green fields are broken up by trees, homes, and ponds. Despite the networks of waterways, communities in this area struggle with reliable access to safe water.
Water Seeps into the Soil: Water Recharge in Guatemala
How reforestation and community action in Guatemala protect water recharge areas and strengthen climate resilience.
Water: A Force for Good
As Oscar Mejia breathes in the fresh mountain air and sips his coffee, he looks around the school that’s nestled in the verdant landscape. Oscar comes from a long line of educators and has taught children in the El Lanillal community in San Antonio de Cortes, Honduras for over 18 years. He is truly committed to helping children reach their full potential, so he’s glad his school and his community look and feel different than they did a couple years back.
Welcome to the Makalani Village
Situated between hills, this hard-to-reach village is in the Chiradzulu District in southern Malawi. A mild, cool climate attracted settlers from nearby Mozambique in the early ‘90s who were in search of land for farming. However, this pursuit of greener pasture led to a major problem – lack of water.
With Water, Comes Sanitation: Sustainable Wetlands in Peru
Artificial wetlands in Peru provide sustainable sanitation, safer water, and community-led economic opportunities.
Yolanda’s Goal
Yolanda loves playing soccer in her rural Bolivian community. But before her school had clean water and bathrooms, she started each day carrying heavy buckets instead of heading straight to class. Access to safe water has changed what’s possible for her – both in school and on the field.