Making the connection

Jehangir Ghandhi
WaterAid's Head of Finance

In giving a donation to WaterAid you start a cycle of events that helps a community in Africa or Asia achieve a better quality of life.

Jehangir Ghandhi explains how one donation makes its way to an urban project in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

"I collect water four times a day in a 20 litre clay jar. Its hard work." Elmas Kassa said. "I have never been to school as I have to help my mother so we can earn enough money. Our house doesn't have a bathroom so I wash once a week and go to the toilet down by the river behind my house. I usually go with my friends as we're supposed to go after dark when people can't see us."

As a WaterAid supporter, you perform the first vital act - setting the process in motion. After opening the appeal leaflet and responding to the need of 13-year-old Elmas Kassa who spends hours each day collecting water, you make a contribution. This donation is banked and processed by WaterAid staff in the UK before being sent overseas.

All of WaterAid projects are run in partnership with local organisations. In Addis Ababa, our office puts significant work and resources into identifying suitable local partners with the capacity to manage projects and ensure they are sustainable, robust and well-designed. Training and developing partners, before any funding starts, is a rigorous process and often takes months.

The inhabitants of the community must be fully involved in the process to ensure the project's long-term success. Often the urban communities WaterAid works with have to endure some of the most densely populated, squalid slums in the world.

The local partner works with the community to design and build the project, which invariably means giving up very scarce space for the water point or sanitation block, and to set up the financial structures and training to ensure long-term project sustainability.

The path of the donation from you to WaterAid, on to the local partner and then to the project is subject to very strict controls. These controls are a 'financial health check' that underpins the sustainability and viability of the project.

Finally, in Oasis we complete the link between you and our projects with examples of how your funds really do make the difference to the lives of those living in marginalised communities in Africa and Asia.