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Drop in the Bucket is excited to launch our new initiative – The Dry Mouth Challenge.

663 million people in the world have never tasted a glass of clean water. We have designed to Dry Mouth Challenge to raise funds and awareness about the deadly water crisis.

The concept is simple – Can you eat 3 crackers in 30 seconds or less without the aid of water?

It sounds easy right? Well, why don’t you take the challenge?

Then when you are done you should challenge three friends of yours to see if they can do it.

It may be a little harder than you think.

Here is a video of our friends from Drops LA taking the challenge

To find out more about the challenge and to make a donation please go to www.drymouthchallenge.com

Every day, between 2,000 and 4,000 people cross the border from South Sudan to Northern Uganda seeking nothing more than survival.

Since the fighting broke out in 2013, more than 1.5 million people have fled South Sudan, making it the world’s fastest growing refugee crisis. More than half of these refugees have resettled in Northern Uganda. Fortunately for them, Uganda has one of the most welcoming refugee policies in the world. Refugees are not just given temporary shelter, they are also provided with land to settle and grow crops.

But this unprecedented mass influx is placing enormous strain on the country’s resources and local infrastructure. The UN estimates that it only has 14% of the funding necessary to meet the needs of the men, women and children in these camps.

In an effort to address the crisis, the government recently established Palabek Refugee Settlement in Lamwo District of northern Uganda. Palabek currently hosts 30,000 refugees and that number is growing daily. But the camp needs basic infrastructure to operate. There are currently no organizations drilling for water in the camp and the people are drinking water that is trucked in from a nearby river.

DROP teams are perfectly positioned to help with the crisis. Our drilling equipment is being mobilized now to Palabek. And our team has been warmly welcomed by everybody from aid agencies, national government and refugees because we have funding to start drilling the first five wells. But they will need more water!

This is where you can help! We are appealing to you, our donors, to help us raise funds for an additional ten wells. Any donation will help. In return, we will share photos during the drilling and keep you updated on our progress. By giving the settlement clean water, we can immediately start saving lives in what is being called Africa’s largest humanitarian crisis. Please click this link to make a donation.

Today is World Water Day and this year we decided to commemorate the day with a new video. The video is titled “How long do people in Africa walk to get water?”. The video attempts to frame the water crisis in a different way by setting the long walk for water, that people in Africa do every day, in an American location.

The video one was directed by Nathan Karma Cox and shot on location in Studio City, CA at Black Market Liquor who generously allowed us to shoot during the day before they opened. The video was produced by Cory Reeder and features music by Stone Sour drummer Roy Mayorga who played all of the instruments on the track including kazoo. Vocals were provided by Stone Sour guitarist Christian Martucci and the graphics were created by Rodrigo Gava from Gava Productions.

We are really happy with how the video turned out and are excited to release it today. Please help us get the word out by sharing the video on your social media pages or by making a donation.

Today is International Women’s Day and to commemorate it we decided to share the story of a woman we recently met in Uganda. Meet Betty.

For most of her life Betty has been a housewife who had to rely on her husband when she needed anything. Her family could not afford to send her to school and educating girls was not considered a priority. Betty is determined that her children will not fall into the same trap.

Betty has always been ambitious, but had a hard time finding anyone who would listen to her. One day, one of her neighbors told her about a local savings group he was a part of.  The non-profit organization Drop in the Bucket had drilled a well at local School and had set up the group. Her neighbor suggested that she come to a meeting to see if she was interested in joining. At the meeting, she saw her neighbors applying for loans and using them to start small businesses. She immediately knew she wanted to join.

Betty took her first loan of 100,000 UGX ($28) to Lake Kyoga where small boats would come in loaded with freshly caught fish. Betty inspected each boat as it came in seeking out the highest quality fish and haggling for the best price. Once she had spent all her money, she carried the fish back to town to the local market.

After making a small profit the first week selling to local vendors, she noticed that other towns would come to the market and buy fish from those vendors a higher price. The next day, she decided to wait for them on the road into town and sell to them directly. Her plan worked and soon she was making a much larger profit than any of the other vendors. She also noticed that people would pay more for dried fish, so she quickly learned that skill too.
Betty’s life has changed! All of her children are in school and she is proud of the fact that she can easily afford to feed, clothe and educate them. All Betty had ever hoped for was that someone would believe in her and give her a chance. That chance came when she joined the savings group. A small loan of just $28 changed the whole course of not just her life, but also the lives of her children.

Today we celebrate Betty and millions of other women like her. Women who can take something small and turn it into something powerful. Happy International Women’s Day! Today we celebrate together.

What does this photo of a child eating a bowl of rice have to do with economic empowerment?

Clean water is an essential first step of economic empowerment, but in order to create sustainable change you have to go much deeper than just water. Although Drop in the Bucket is mainly thought of as a water charity, drilling wells is just the first step. What happens when the wells break? Just like cars, computers or almost anything else that gets a lot of use, well pumps are eventually going to break. A routine repair that costs just a few dollars could leave a well broken if the community does not have enough money to fix it.

Savings groups are a logical solution to make sure that funds are always available to cover inevitable repairs. Built on community participation and access to funds, they are key to ensuring clean water for generations.

Drop in the Bucket’s community savings groups program consists of a highly structured system of saving, borrowing and lending money generated from local contributions, which provides a financial incentive for the community to keep the wells working. At each project we train local workers in basic pump maintenance and repair. These workers can then charge a fee from the community for their service. The goal is to create a sense of ownership and independence of the well. After the community has saved enough money to cover any repairs, community participants are invited to submit their ideas to the group for new business ventures.

Loans are voted on by association members, must be used for income-generating activities and paid back with interest. At the end of each year, the interest is divided among the group members. This not only provides a fund to cover maintenance on the well, but also provides an opportunity for the villagers to achieve financial independence.

So what does the photo have to do with our savings groups? Well, the child is eating a bowl of seasoned rice and the reason she is so happy is because rice is a treat where she lives in Uganda. What makes this day special is because there is no special occasion. It’s not her birthday, or Christmas, it’s just a normal day but she gets to eat the rice she loves.

Her mother is a member of a savings group set up to support the well Drop in the Bucket drilled at Father Omoding Primary School in Serere, Uganda. Her mother borrowed a small amount of money to get her business started and is now doing so well that her daughter can eat rice on days that aren’t holidays. Her financial independence is what puts a smile on her face. Her daughter’s smile might have something to do with how great her mom’s rice tastes.

In 2014 Drop in the Bucket drilled a well at the Dokolo Kamuda primary school in Soroti, Along with the well, we also formed a village savings group for the local community.

A savings group is a structured system of lending and borrowing money that had been developed for use in rural communities. The idea is to create a village level bank where the villagers are the customers and the owners.

Money is collected before we drill by the community. This money becomes seed money that group members can borrow from to start small businesses. The members pitch their ideas for money making businesses to the group and the group selects the ideas they want to fund. People often start with simple projects such as raising crops or livestock, but as time goes on the ideas tend to get more ambitious.

Loans are paid back with interest and at the end of each year, the group members get to divide up the money.

The Dokolo Kamuda savings group grew so large, that the members had to split into two groups. Robert is a member of Group Two.

Robert spent several years working as an assistant to a vet. He later branched out on his own administering medicine to sick animals and handling routine procedures like de-worming cattle.

When Robert first joined the savings group, he already owned three young bulls. He had been looking to buy a third and was having difficulty saving the money he needed. He joined the Dokolo Kamuda village savings group and submitted his plan to purchase a fourth bull. He explained to the group that with a fourth bull he would be able to earn money ploughing fields for all of the local farmers..

Robert explained that he was going to charge 80,000 UGX per acre and that it takes on average about 2-3 days to plough a full acre. Because there is so much farming in the area, his services would be in high demand. The group agreed to lend him the money and they set an interest rate and a schedule for the repayments.

The first year went better than expected, so now Robert has decided to get a second plough. Because the bulls are now more mature, he will be able to use two bulls per plough instead of putting all four on just one. This will enable Robert to get twice as many fields ploughed each week and will also help the entire community to plant more crops during this season.

Later this year Robert intends to purchase a motorcycle so that he can increase the area where he works. This is a purchase he intends to make without having to borrow money from the group as his ploughing business is booming. The Dokolo-Kamuda village savings group has made so many things possible for Robert and he is so happy he is was able to join and participate.

Savings groups are a perfect example of how a small amount of money can make a huge impact on someone’s life. We are very proud of the difference groups like Robert’s are making and it is very exciting to see all of the small businesses that spring up from each group. It’s like each well starts a chain reaction of empowerment that ripples out through the community. We are grateful to be able to do this work and grateful to our donors for making this all possible.

In a year of so many great losses, there is one you may not know about. Last week we lost a scientist who made a huge impact on the world. Although Vera Rubin, was not well known outside of the scientific community. In the scientific world, she was a star.

It may seem strange for a clean water nonprofit to memorialize the death of an astrophysicist, but it will soon become clear why we are. Rubin, whose work confirmed dark matter—the still mysterious substance that comprises about 90% of our universe—was a pioneer for women around the world.

She and her father built a telescope from scratch when she was a child, and her fascination with the sky never waned. Her passion informed her studies, eventually culminating in a Ph.D. at Georgetown. But she faced patriarchal obstacles all along the way. While attempting to become the first woman to observe at Caltech’s legendary Palomar Observatory in the 1960s, she was informed that there was no room for women—not even a bathroom. Undeterred, she cut a skirt out of a piece of paper and stuck it to the stick figure on the men’s room door and said ‘Look, now you have a ladies room’.

It was that part of her story that inspired us so much. In the communities where we work, girls are often forced to drop out of school for two main reasons: 1) they are tasked with the time-consuming process of collecting water for their families and/or 2) they must miss significant school time each month during their menstrual cycles because schools lack proper sanitation systems. In sub-Saharan Africa, too many girls have missed out on their full potential because they lack life’s most basic need—water.

In her book Bright Galaxies, Dark Matters, Rubin wrote:

“I live and work with three basic assumptions.

1) There is no problem in science that can be solved by a man that cannot be solved by a woman.

2) Worldwide, half of all brains are in women.

3) We all need permission to do science, but, for reasons that are deeply ingrained in history, this permission is more often given to men than to women.”

During her career, Rubin received the National Medal of Science, our nation’s highest scientific prize, and she became the first woman since 1928 to earn the Royal Astronomical Society’s Gold Medal. She also mentored scores of young female scientists and pushed for academic institutions to hire more women to their staffs.

At Drop in the Bucket, we believe that access to education, like water, is a fundamental human right. And while it is now uncommon to find schools here without toilets for girls, it is still all too commonplace in East Africa. That fact is driving us to install more sanitation systems and drill more wells than ever in 2017. What if all that stands between the world and the next Vera Rubin is access to a bathroom?

Oh the weather outside is frightful… Yes, it’s almost that most wonderful time of the year again, but as great as the holidays are, finding that perfect gift can also be stressful. This year we’ve made things easy for everyone. What’s the one gift everybody wants and that never goes out of style? How about giving the gift of health, happiness, and life. This year, give the gift of clean water with our easy and convenient Drop in the Bucket holiday e-card.

This year’s e-card features a beautiful portrait from our good friend, photographer Star Sargenti. Drop in the Bucket had just finished drilling a well for the Kyere Township Primary School in Uganda,  when Star took this photo. The image of a child enjoying his first taste of clean water really captured the moment. The absolute unbridled joy that children experience when tasting clean water for the first time. As soon as we saw the picture, we knew we needed to share the moment with everyone.

These cards are the perfect gift for someone you love, work with, or just for that person who is difficult to buy for. After all, who wouldn’t want to change someone’s life with clean water this holiday season?

The cards have space on the right to add text. When they are filled out they look like this:

To get your card, just click this link, just enter your name, the name of the person you want to send the card to, and their email. You can also add a personal message to the email if you want and that’s it! We will take care of the rest, no waiting in line, no crowded stores and no items out of stock. Just the perfect gift everyone will love, because kindness never goes out of style!

Meet Lucy Acomo

You already know this story is about her. She wears an orange and blue dress in a sea of green school uniforms. In a classroom full of teenagers, she sits with a smirk on her face and an infant snuggled and snoozing against her stomach. She is Lucy Acomo. She is 43 years old. And you can tell already, she isn’t embarrassed and she isn’t ashamed — she’s excited to be in school.

Lucy was born in the Katakwi district of Uganda during a civil war in Uganda. Like too many girls of her generation — and even now — she was forced to quit school in order to take care of her family. She never even learned to read and write. And like too many girls of her generation — and even now — she was forced to marry at the age of 14 to a man she hardly knew. Her husband, Echana Paul, only received a fourth-grade education and now works security at a local hospital. Together, they have nine children, from 17-year-old Ekokor Jorem to 6-month-old Acom Pascalina, the girl slung on her in the photo. To supplement Echana’s income — and to feed her family — Lucy grows crops.

Consider, for a moment, what a day in Lucy’s life looks like. Even before she wakes at first light to make breakfast for her children and husband and make sure they get off to school and work on time, she’s up at her infant’s cries several times. Once the rest of her family is gone, she splits her time tending to her land and maintaining her household — mending and washing clothes, buying and preparing food, cleaning her home.
It would have been easy for her to feel sorry for herself, or to blame the many factors that robbed her of an education and the opportunities that come with it — her parents, her husband, her culture, her country. But she never has.

One day a couple years ago, she visited some of her children at Aputiput primary school near her home. The teachers told Lucy not only about her children’s progress, but also about a new opportunity: an adult literacy program. Parents could sit in with students and receive the education they’d been denied. Lucy signed up straight away.

But of course it isn’t in Lucy’s nature to do something for just herself, so she found work at the school as well. She has volunteered to cook lunch for the entire school for free while she attends. And she also serves as the school’s treasurer, collecting fees and distributing money to the teachers and for school maintenance.

And she can now read and write.

To her husband and children, Lucy is an inspiration. Her children, especially, have learned to love education and appreciate the opportunities that they’ve received because of her hard work. They want to go to college. They want to be lawyers and veterinarians and nurses.

And Lucy? She wants to take social science classes and become a stronger math student. At the end of each day, her wrists ache from the writing and her back aches from the fields and her feet ache from the miles she walks, but she isn’t complaining — and she isn’t slowing down. She’s never felt better.

Every day, we witness inspiring stories like Lucy’s. In sub-Saharan Africa, adults and children alike are eager to learn, are eager for better lives, but they lack the same opportunities we take for granted each day. One of the biggest obstacles in creating a fair world for all people — most especially girls in developing nations — is lack of access to clean drinking water.

All over East Africa, girls drop out of school to fetch water for their families and are relegated to lives of service instead of self-fulfillment. Water is a basic human right, essential to keeping people alive and in good health, but when coupled with education, water has the power to change the world.

This is how the world changes: One school at a time, one class a time, one child at a time. The war in South Sudan had kept this girl from getting an education, but now the schools are open again and she is eager to learn.

This is her classroom. There are no computers or textbooks or even walls, just a blackboard leaning against a tree. The class is taking a break right now, but she remained to make sure she fully understood the lesson. What’s written on this blackboard alone won’t change her life, but her education can help pull her out of poverty and give her the opportunity for a future she deserves.

We are grateful that we were able to build a well at her school so that she doesn’t have to worry about anything other than what’s on that blackboard every day while she’s at school. And we’re grateful to you, our donors, from making this work possible.