Our Strategy
Lifewater is focused on providing safe, accessible drinking water and improving health and hygiene in Liberia, Nigeria, Kenya, and Haiti. Read more about our Mission, Goals and Targets.
In these countries, Lifewater trains and equips local people to drill wells, repair or replace broken hand pumps, install rainwater catchment systems, build community toilets and hand-washing stations, and host health and hygiene workshops.
Donors in Canada, the U.S., and Europe sponsor projects to keep them affordable for the local people, saving children’s lives and increasing educational opportunities for girls. You can help drill a well in Africa or Haiti.
We fix broken hand pumps -- ones we have installed, but also ones installed by other organizations that are no longer available to maintain them -- to keep safe water flowing. Our long-term goal is to help communities break cycles of dependency and work towards increasingly self-reliant project maintenance.
We focus on keeping costs down
Lifewater is powered by volunteers and by part-time employees working from home. They pay their own way overseas to encourage local workers by providing training and by helping to repair equipment, build facilities, and audit completed projects.
At the dedication for Lifewater Canada's first-ever water well, a Liberian bishop quoted this African proverb that is now well-known around the world -- "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you feed him for life." This philosophy sums up our focus on training and equipping rather than hand-outs and short-term emergency aid.
During recent years, governments and global organizations such as the World Bank have spent as much as $100 per person to provide safe drinking water in underdeveloped areas. Lifewater Canada does this same work for $10 per person by:
- Relying on volunteers and part-time employees working from home to keep overhead costs under 10% -- see our Audited Financial Statements
- Using low-cost technologies wherever possible
- Empowering and equipping local people
- Completing the easier projects first to save as many lives as possible!
We stretch donor dollars to help as many people as possible by working in areas:
- That are as close to our workers as possible to minimize travel time and expensive truck repairs caused by driving on badly potholed roads
- Where we have a high success rate (90% or higher) drilling wells
- Where we do not have to drill deep through hard rock
- Where we can have multiple projects underway to efficiently mobilize, hold village training workshops, and conduct long-term project follow-up
Read more about our strategy:
Read about some real-life situations that have helped us to refine our strategy
