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Village Water Charity Africa Zambia
About Us
Village Water UK is a Charity registered in England and Wales (Charity No. 1117377).
Founder and Trustee David Dixon established Village Water after a visit to Honduras in Central America in 2001. Here he saw the rapid improvement to health and living standards arising from the installation of privately funded local water supplies.
Based on this experience, David went on to assess how much farmers and their families in remote villages in Africa could benefit from such programmes. Having witnessed the desperate need for water and sanitation in rural Zambia, the charity was established; working firstly in collaboration with another UK charity and then as an independently registered charity from 2006. In January 2007 Village Water’s Zambian Field Director Mr Elisha Ngonomo was appointed. He is a highly experienced natural resources manager. Village Water Zambia (VWZ) was successfully registered as a a Zambian Non-Government Organisation (NGO) (ORS/102/35/3491) in May 2007.
As well as VWZ's head office in Lusaka, there are centres in Mongu and Kaoma in Western Province. Each centre has a professional team who go out to the villages to work with the local people.
VWZ Kaoma is headed by an experienced and highly regarded Project Manager Mr Renny Mwanamambo. He is ably assisted by Mr Jameson Lubingo and a team of volunteer water and health workers who undertake the community mobilisation in their large District. VWZ Mongu, employs three professional staff, Mrs Clare Mulopo, Mrs Albertina Siyunyi & Mrs Precious Muuka, who were originally community volunteers, all of whom have many years’ experience in community water, sanitation and hygiene education since they were trained and began working as a team in 1986. Their ability to mobilise a village to achieve sustainable water and sanitation is much admired.
Village Water is a supporter of the Government’s WASHE (water, sanitation, hygiene and education) policy which calls for the integrated provision of water, sanitation and hygiene services. As a result, our three bases in Zambia attract a great deal of encouragement from Zambia’s national and local government officers and the Permanent Secretary of the Western Province. Through the WASHE scheme, we are also able to work closely with other NGO’s in the area to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort.
The achievements of Village Water Zambia in the fields of Sanitation and Hygiene were recognised in 2010 by the prestigious AMCOW AfricaSan Awards. We were selected as runner up in the Public Service Award category. The awards aim to raise the profile of sanitation and hygiene by drawing attention to successful approaches, promoting excellence in leadership, innovation and sanitation and hygiene improvements in Africa, and providing incentives for action. The awards initiative is organised by the African Ministers’ Council on Water in collaboration with many organisations including UNICEF, UN Water Africa, and WaterAid.
Village Water UK has 6 unpaid trustees and 2 paid members of staff in the UK.
