The Rwanda Water Project addresses the clean drinking water needs of the country’s rural inhabitants. More than one-third of Rwandans lack access to clean water and more than half lack proper sanitation facilities. In addition, women and young girls spend hours each day walking to distant sources to obtain water for their families. The difficulty in obtaining clean water results in a host of easily preventable water-related illnesses, making it a key contributor to the high mortality rates among infants and children. The goal of the Rwanda Water Project is to improve access to clean water by installing biosand filters. This in turn improves the overall health and wellness of the entire household. The Rwanda Water Project was started in December 2008, and is implemented at the point of need through a partnership with Frontier Harvest Ministries.
A country a little smaller than the state of Maryland, Rwanda is located in East Central Africa. Since the tragic genocide in 1994, the Republic of Rwanda has instituted constitutional reforms that mandate a balance of power between the two major ethnic groups. It is Africa’s most densely populated country, and the majority of its population lives in rural areas doing subsistence agriculture. Its major exports are coffee and tea. Rwanda struggles with high poverty rates, but it continues to stabilize its economy. The small country mostly consists of grasslands and rolling hills which earn Rwanda its nickname, land of a thousand hills.
