It has been a long history of dirty, polluted water for twenty-four rural communities in southern Ethiopia.
At best, the ponds, the rivers, the shallow dug wells, the emerging springs offered a dangerous solution to human needs. 
WHAT MAKES A DIFFERENCE?
Rotary!
 
All this has changed with The Rotary Foundation global grant provided through the Northwest Austin Rotary Club, District 5870 and the Rotary Club of Addis Ababa-Central Mella. Now the twenty-four rural communities east of Hawassa have been provided clean water with three developed natural springs that have been capped and routed to a reservoir, and twenty-one hand dug wells. 
In addition to providing water sources, the grant also provided eight modules of training for community residents in all twenty-four sites. These included community organizing to elect a Water Committee  with an elected treasurer who has oversight of the project and long-term responsibility. It is responsible to open a bank account and assess a monthly fee to community residents who wish to use the new water sites. 1,000 birr (about $25-$30) must be deposited during the construction which will increase monthly to be used to maintain the site for many years. Water And Sanitation, Hygiene (WASH ) training on the use of clean water and sanitation practices to maintain good hygiene is given for adults, children, and community leaders. Resource management practices are taught for maintaining the land use around the sites and the water table.  Training for water site maintenance and repair is provided to a team at each site.
Particular Challenges
            The first challenge was the impact of Coved-19 that required all work and community  gatherings for training to be done with careful sanitation protocols. The costs for PPE, sanitizers, meeting spaces were not part of grant budget, so this required use of unbudgeted funds and extended the time and number of training sessions.
            The second major challenge was that the grant began with 32 Ethiopian birr=$1 and ended with 46 birr =$1.  In addition, the war in northern Ethiopia caused internal birr inflation so that the prices of fuel, cement, parts and some wages increased throughout the grant time. The monthly inflation and birr to dollar deflation caused extra accounting work both in Ethiopia and USA to keep a budget balanced and in line.
            The third challenge occurred when two dry holes were dug on our 24th water well. Thankfully, it was at the end of the construction! We finally moved to a different community site to complete  the 24th water well and do all the training for this extra community.
 
Joyful Results
The twenty-four water sources benefit around 9,000 people in the various villages and double that many indirectly with the WASH training and impact in the villages. In addition, the training produced 1516 household latrines to enhance the sanitation practices.
Upon completion of water sites, they were handed over to the communities often with great celebration, food, singing, community leaders, worship leaders, and Rotarians present. Here are the wonderful words of gratitude spoken at one of these celebrations at the Damo community:
Those who  consider  forgotten  community and saved us traveling  long distances  for searching for water, your children  will be blessed, successful and famous’’  This blessing  is for all actors in the project--Rotary members, Water to Thrive, Mekane Yesus and government officials.
 
Rotary Connects the World and Opens Opportunities to Change Lives
Indeed, the Rotary themes for the last three years well explain this three-year project. This grant brought together twenty-five Rotary clubs, three Districts, four non-Rotary individuals, one church and of course, The Rotary Foundation to provide a grant of $157,155. Water to Thrive, a non-profit in Austin that provides wells in Africa, was our partner offering technical supervision. The Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekene Yesus social action department was the agency that did the construction and training. The Rotary Foundation approved the grant in March 2020.  All local work and training are complete as of November 2021.The grant will close later in 2022.
For further information contact Kent Miller at kent.kcm@gmail.com.