Hygiene and Culture

Date the team formed: 2015

Number of team members: 30

Total number of beneficiaries: 5376

Amount Funded: $4069

Team Hygiene & Culture (H&C) launched their first water venture in 2016, which initially faced water shortages due to military camp disruptions. They courageously put their new skills as conscious social change agents to work and negotiated an agreement with the military camp for increased local water service. Before H&C’s launch, households often spent 300 RWF per jerry can of water. Now those same households pay only 30 RWF, tremendous savings which the women use to pay school fees or join a rapidly expanding lending circle, which now has 384 members. The team has also helped reduce malnutrition through the use of kitchen gardens.

Update: In January, H&C opened their second water site, which includes two water storage tanks at each of the two water sites to offset municipal water disruptions and military camp water diversion. Additionally, H&C designed and installed ten kitchen gardens in five nearby villages, which serve as demonstration gardens for teaching, inspiring, and supporting over 50 home gardeners. In March, H&C held a workshop on malnutrition and over 81 households attended. Throughout the summer, H&C continued to operate their water venture and serve the most vulnerable community members. In addition to water sales which benefited 501 households (2004 people), they also provided 23 vulnerable households with free water (2 L per day), and 421 individuals accessed their handwashing station. As restrictions allowed, H&C’s educational efforts focused substantially on increasing community members’ knowledge about WASH (391 trained), as well as nutrition trainings for 40 individuals in a train-the-trainer format.