My “What should I blog about today” tweet this afternoon got me linked up with a really cool non-profit Operation Wellfound that provides safe, clean drinking water and sanitation services to communities in the developing world.
Alex, one of their fundraisers wrote me this message for you guys when I offered him a slot:
“We’re a relatively small but rapidly growing Christian charity based in West London that provides safe, clean drinking water and sanitation services to communities in the developing world. We have worked quite extensively in Eastern Europe in the past, however, since the expansion of the EU our help is less necessary as aid and money is flowing from Brussels so now we almost solely focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. We now work in Senegal, Kenya and Guinea Bissau and, with the help of our donors, are hoping to expand in to Mali and Ghana as well as continuing projects in the other countries. We ensure our projects are sustainable and benefit the community in an economic sense by carrying out extensive test to ensure the quality and amount of water underground as well as sourcing all the parts, material and labor from the surrounding areas. We also create well committees from women and village elders to ensure the fair use and maintenance of the wells and latrines.
For my part I am very new to the Charity having been recruited in September along with someone else which meant the number of staff in office has doubled, a positive sign that we’re growing in the right direction! My role is as assistant fundraiser and over the last few months I have been working to develop a solid fundraising strategy as well as developing a means for members of the public to become engaged in raising money for us beyond simple donations. We’ve recently created a link with a sky dive company that will allow people trying to raise money for Operation WellFound by doing a jump with no cost to themselves. They simply have to raise a minimum amount (£300) and we receive £150 and the dive company takes £150 for their costs. We have done similar with ‘doitforcharity.com’ where we are now involved in; the London to Paris cycle ride, white water rafting, 5k Christmas runs, treks in Vietnam and Peru. We are also awaiting confirmation for our involvement in the Great North Run. All of these will be available on our new website, which should be running in a week or so. The current one, that you saw, does not have this facility.
We have recently finished work on a project in Guinea Bissau where we built seven water wells and eighty latrines which will change the lives of six thousand people in seven villages and one suburb of Bissau City. You can see from our website some of the other projects we’ve completed and we’re raring to go on many more; in fact we have regular letters of request of help from areas we’ve surveyed where the local populations are desperate for help. However, we need more funds to do this which means we desperately need help from supporters either by donations or getting involved in our sponsored events.”
Incredible work Alex! Keep it up.
Why not encourage these innovative campaigners and find out how you can support them today?
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