April 2021 Newsletter - Global Washington

Welcome to the April 2021 issue of the Global Washington newsletter.

IN THIS ISSUE

Letter from our Executive Director
Issue Brief: How Water Builds Peace and Resilience in an Increasingly Water-Scarce World
Organization Profile: World Vision: Delivering Water and Reconciliation
Goalmaker: Fred Auch Has Built a Bridge or Two. Now He’s Building Bridges to Sustainable Change
From Our Blog: From Ebola to COVID-19: Advocating for and Supplying WASH Programs and Infrastructure in Healthcare Facilities Around the World
Welcome New Members
GlobalWA Member Events
Career Center
GlobalWA Events

Letter from our Executive Director

Kristen Dailey

Throughout history, water has been a source of conflict, as nations wrestle for sovereignty over key waterways, communities fight for access to critical water sources, and populations are forced to leave their homes due to water scarcity. Access to clean water is a basic human right and just as it can be a source of conflict, it has the potential to be a powerful instrument of peacebuilding. Water security reduces conflict triggers in water-scarce areas and water projects present an opportunity for communities to build social cohesion and social capital around a shared resource.

There are several Global Washington members working in conflict areas and implementing water and sanitation projects to bring communities together. Please read more about this topic in our issue brief below and join us on April 29 for a virtual event about with speakers from Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation, World Vision, and EverVillage.

As we celebrate Earth Day this week, Global Washington is elevating the importance of Sustainable Development Goal 6 to ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. And, as we have learned from our Global Washington members, supporting and strengthening local water systems in low- and middle-income countries has the potential to reduce conflict and build social capital. I encourage you to learn more and join us at our virtual event on April 29.

KristenSignature

Kristen Dailey
Executive Director

Issue Brief

How Water Builds Peace and Resilience in an Increasingly Water-Scarce World

By Joanne Lu

Syrian refugee children drink from water taps installed by World Vision at Azraq refugee camp in Jordan.
© World Vision/ photo by Elias Abu Ata

Sometimes it’s hard to imagine that something as ordinary as water can be so powerful. We know, for example, that access to clean water can transform the everyday lives of individuals, eliminating diseases, freeing up women to earn an income and allowing children to go to school. But more and more, water is also playing a crucial role in peace and conflicts, especially as water becomes more scarce with increasing populations, overuse, mismanagement, and climate change.

Throughout history, water has been a trigger or source of conflict, as nations wrestle for sovereignty over key waterways, groups fight for access to critical water sources, and populations are forced to leave their homes due to water scarcity. It’s also been weaponized to control populations and gain political leverage, and water infrastructure is often a casualty of conflict, being intentionally or unintentionally damaged or destroyed. In 2017, water was identified by the United Nations as a major factor in conflicts in at least 45 countries, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa. A chronology compiled by the Pacific Institute shows a striking increase in the number of water-related conflicts within the last few decades.

And climate change is exacerbating the situation. Amid erratic rainfall, severe droughts and other extreme weather events, competition for a diminishing water supply is ramping up and leading to more water-related conflicts. According to the World Resources Institute, 17 countries are facing “extremely high” levels of water stress, while about a quarter of the global population (more than two billion people) is experiencing “high” water stress. These conditions are fueling conflict and social unrest. It’s also forcing people to migrate in search of water for themselves, their crops, and their livestock. In turn, this large-scale displacement is causing further instability and conflict.

But increasingly, humanitarian and development organizations are seeing water emerge as more than just a basic human right – it’s also an instrument of peacebuilding. Not only can water security reduce conflict triggers in water-scarce areas, but water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) projects present an opportunity for communities to build social cohesion and social capital around a shared resource.

According to Jonathan Papoulidis, an executive advisor on fragile states for World Vision, managing complex risk – like water-related conflicts – and building resilience requires improving social capital along three components simultaneously: bonding, bridging, and linking.

Bonding brings people together within a community when they share assets and resources, provide psychosocial support to one another and respond to emergencies together. WASH projects in communities that previously didn’t have regular access to clean water often accomplish this. Organizations like Water1st International accomplish this by training communities – including refugee communities who have been displaced by conflict – to independently build, operate and maintain their own water projects in perpetuity. Community members elect their own water committee to govern their new water systems. The result is greater social cohesion and water projects that last.

Similarly, Friendly Water for the World empowers communities to take care of their own clean water needs, and does so partly through peacemaking efforts. And The Hunger Project has trained more than 20,000 local leaders since 2011 in building community skills and awareness around water and sanitation.

Bridging is the second component of increasing social capital. It involves connecting communities that are either disconnected or in conflict with each other. This is yet another function of water projects. For example, Water Mission found that in Mkinga, Tanzania, water scarcity exacerbated existing tensions and arguments between neighbors of different faiths. But when Water Mission installed a tap for clean water in the community, arguments over water stopped, and the tap became a source of unity in the community. It was not only a shared resource, but also a gathering place for residents to engage in friendly conversations everyday.

World Vision, too, has seen similar bridging happen through a Cash for Work Water (C4WW) program, implemented by the German agency for international development (GIZ), in Jordan. Because of a massive influx of refugees, primarily from Syria, tensions were rising between Jordanian host communities and refugee communities, especially amid high unemployment rates. The country’s already scarce water resources were under immense strain because of the influx of refugees. And the country’s water dams were losing capacity because of soil erosion. To address these issues, the C4WW program offered both Jordanians and Syrian refugees temporary work building erosion-prevention structures. Since 2017, the program has provided more than 9,000 people with temporary employment – half of them Jordanian and half of them refugees, working alongside each other.

The last component to building social capital is linking, in which communities that are bonded and bridged are also linked to formal institutions, such as governments, NGOs, multilateral organizations, and private companies. When it comes to water, Mercy Corps, for example, recognizes the importance of linking communities to formal institutions for sustainability. In the immediate aftermath of a crisis, Mercy Corps will deliver water to communities without access. But in order to ensure that communities have continued access, Mercy Corps partners with companies and organizations like Walmart, the Miami Foundation and BlackRock in Puerto Rico to rebuild the island’s energy and water supply. In the Bahamas, Mercy Corps made sure that Freeport YMCA and Salvation Army had clean water by installing reverse osmosis purifiers to desalinate ocean water that had infiltrated aquifers. Splash also understands the importance of linking, specifically through their partnerships with local governments. Splash believes that “in most cases, governments are the best entities to expand this work and carry it on for the long haul.” Splash’s influence on government practices acts as a “core building block towards sustainability and scale.”

Sustainable water projects that bond, bridge, and link communities are critical for building community resilience. They help prepare communities to not only confront increasing risks to water security, but also conflicts, water-related or otherwise. That’s why it’s important to continue progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 6 of clean water for all by 2030. Specifically, Target 6.A aims to expand water and sanitation support to developing countries, including through water harvesting, desalination, water efficiency, wastewater treatment, recycling and reuse technologies.

But Target 6.B really gets at how WASH projects can build resilience and peace. It aims to support and strengthen the participation of local communities in improving water and sanitation management, because it’s only through their participation that they become stronger as a community to withstand the threats of water scarcity.

Global Washington members working on water:

Friendly Water for the World

Founded in 2010, Friendly Water for the World is a dynamic, rapidly growing, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Olympia, WA. Its mission is to expand global access to low-cost clean water technologies and information about health and sanitation through knowledge-sharing, training, applied research, community-building, peacemaking, and efforts at sustainability. The organization empowers communities abroad to take care of their own clean water needs, even as it empowers people in the U.S. to make a real difference. Friendly Water for the World currently works in 15 countries, and has assisted more than 160 marginalized and oppressed rural communities – including widows with HIV, people with albinism, survivors of war-time rape, victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, indigenous tribes, and unemployed youth – ensure their own safe drinking water while becoming employed in the process.

The Hunger Project

The Hunger Project’s holistic approach in Africa, South Asia and Latin America empowers women and men living in rural villages to become the agents of their own development and sustainably overcome hunger and poverty. Through its WASH programs, The Hunger Project empowers rural communities to ensure they have access to clean water and improved sanitation, the capacity to develop new water sources, and the information to implement water conservation techniques. Since 2011, nearly 871,000 people have participated in The Hunger Project’s WASH skill or awareness building activities and the organization has trained over 20,000 local leaders in building community skills and awareness around water and sanitation.

Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps helps people around the world get clean water by providing water during emergencies, building wells to reduce long treks (often made by vulnerable girls and women), repairing damaged water infrastructure and helping construct reservoirs to ensure communities have access to clean water in the future. In Zimbabwe, Mercy Corps restored a community’s water infrastructure to provide clean and safe water for over 43,000 people. In turn, this also significantly reduced the distance girls had to travel to collect drinking water for their families from 2500m to 80m. During emergencies, access to clean water plays a vital role in preventing disease outbreaks and other water-borne illnesses. In response to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo where three quarters of the population lack access to clean water, Mercy Corps has provided over 600,000 displaced people with safe drinking water to help keep their families healthy and prevent disease. In 2018, Mercy Corps connected more than 3 million people to clean water and hygiene and sanitation facilities during emergencies across the globe.

Path from Poverty

In Kenya, with unclean water sources often miles from villages, woman and girls are forced to spend hours each day simply finding and transporting water. It is not safe for women and girls to fetch water in the very early hours of the morning. The daily average for a Kenya woman is 4-6 hours of walking for clean water. The typical container used for water collection in Africa, the jerry can, weighs over 40 pounds when it’s completely full. With much of one’s day already consumed by meeting basic needs, there isn’t time for much else. The hours lost to gathering water are often the difference between the time to do a trade and earn a living and not. Path From Poverty works to end this daily hardship and is putting a stop to girls lives being at risk by providing clean, safe water at the homes of women and their families. Empowering women, teaching them to work together, start a micro enterprise, and pool resources, Path From Poverty is changing lives and giving back the time lost fetching water so girls can go to school, women can earn much-needed income, and they can be safe from rape and abduction.

Splash

Splash is a nonprofit organization focused on clean water, clean hands and clean toilets for children living in urban poverty across Asia and Africa. Splash implements water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programs in child-serving institutions, including schools, hospitals, shelters and orphanages, in order to reach the greatest number of children cost-effectively and to bring about generational change. The nonprofit’s holistic approach to WASH includes high-quality water filtration systems, durable drinking and hand washing stations, toilet renovations, and hygiene clubs to ensure that kids learn healthy habits like handwashing. To date, Splash has completed over 1,600 international projects and serves safe drinking water to over 400,000 children a day in eight countries (China, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Nepal, Thailand, and Vietnam). Splash’s goal is to reach one million children per day by 2023.

Water1st International

Water1st prides itself on funding sustainable water projects that involve local communities, local women, as well as a consistent funding stream. Since its founding in 2005, Water1st has provided clean water to over 188,000 people. While its projects focus on providing easy access to clean water, the organization also ensures that projects integrate toilets and hygiene education. Water1st’s success centers on robust program evaluation of each of its funded projects to ensure that deliverables are effective and community needs are met.

WaterAid

WaterAid is the #1 ranked international nonprofit dedicated to transforming lives through access to clean water, toilets and hygiene education. WaterAid has been helping communities around the globe become more resilient to extreme weather, natural hazards and changing environmental conditions for more than 30 years. From rainwater harvesting and gravity-fed water systems, to spring water protection, environmentally-friendly sanitation solutions, improved rainwater monitoring and dedicated climate advocacy, WaterAid works with local communities throughout Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Pacific region to proactively identify the kinds of problems they face right now, and the ones they may face in the future. Since 1981, WaterAid has reached 24.9 million people with clean water and, since 2004, 24 million people with toilets and sanitation.

Water Mission

When COVID-19 began making its way around the world, Water Mission’s global staff quickly scaled up program efforts to provide handwashing stations, sanitation supplies, hygiene training, and COVID-19 awareness education. Water Mission provided critical hygiene supplies, such as safe water and soap, to more than 800,000 people around the world. Water Mission installed more than 8,550 handwashing stations in key locations, including healthcare facilities, schools, and existing safe water collection points in Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Peru, Malawi, Mexico, and the Bahamas. To date, this program has equipped nearly 1,000 healthcare facilities with handwashing stations and training materials, ensuring that frontline workers are better equipped and protected as they carry out their critical work.

World Vision

World Vision is committed to accelerating universal and equitable access to water, sanitation, and hygiene services to contribute to Sustainable Development Goal 6. This will only be achieved through collaboration. Between 2016-2021 World Vision reached 20 million people with clean water. The organization has more than 1,200 designated WASH staff members in 41 prioritized countries that provide localized expertise. In its business plan for 2021-2025, World Vision aims to impact 15 million people with safe water, 14 million people with improved sanitation, and 18 million with improved hygiene through access to household hand-washing stations. The organization is also ramping up area-wide approaches to support WASH universal coverage plans for more than 150 subnational districts. World Vision is expanding WASH investments in healthcare facilities and schools. These plans will demonstrate sustainable impact and keep the organization on track to reach everyone World Vision works with everywhere with basic clean water access by 2030 —approximately 50 million people between 2016 to 2030. World Vision is deepening its focus on the most vulnerable, especially in fragile and extremely fragile contexts. It will continue to provide WASH during emergencies, and when combined with the provision of sustained water service, World Vision will continue to reach one new person with clean water every 10 seconds.

Organization Profile

World Vision: Delivering Water and Reconciliation

By Joanne Lu

World Vision staff work to install water, sanitation, and hygiene infrrastructure before the first Syrian refugees arrive at Azraq camp in Jordan. © World Vision/ photo by Jon Warren

When Bob Pierce founded World Vision in 1950 to respond to emergencies in East Asia, the term “WASH,” for water, sanitation and hygiene, was still almost four decades away from being coined in the late 80s.

Nevertheless, a pivotal moment in the organization’s history came in 1979 when World Vision took its first foray into a WASH-like humanitarian response. Rescuing 93 Vietnamese refugees stranded at sea, when no one else would, a World Vision team provided the refugees with clean water, food, medical kits and other supplies until they were eventually able to transport the refugees to land. The rescue mission was dubbed Operation Seasweep, and it inspired other naval fleets to respond to the refugee crisis at large. It also established World Vision as an organization willing to make bold choices.

In the mid-80s, World Vision began to support standalone WASH projects, building rural water supply systems around the world. But by the 2000s, it became apparent that the nature of emergencies had changed. Instead of resolving after a couple of years, crises are increasingly drawn-out and seem to have no end. On top of that, climate change is exacerbating conditions in these so-called “fragile contexts,” places that are plagued by chronic instability, conflict and violence.

These are exactly the types of places and the conditions in which World Vision is called upon to act. But the blurring lines between immediate, temporary emergency response and long-term, sustainable development pose unique challenges when it comes to WASH projects.

Michael Wicker, World Vision’s senior emergency WASH technical advisor who is based in Amman, Jordan, says they always have to find an appropriate balance between quality, time and cost when it comes to WASH projects. Some temporary approaches such as emergency water trucking or quick fixing of broken water points may be the appropriate solution before assessing a long term water supply project especially with the fluid movement of displaced communities.

WASH is not just an emergency supply, like food. It’s a service provision. That’s why, Wicker says, World Vision always works “hand-in-hand” with local governments and water ministries to make sure, first, that their help is needed, and, if so, that their projects align with cities’ master plans and are an investment in local infrastructure. Because all water systems require maintenance, Wicker says it’s crucial that they never implement a project without buy-in from the local water authority or a rural water committee, which will be responsible for the system in the long-run.

Just in the six-and-a-half years that Wicker has been with World Vision, he’s seen the struggle over water resources cause conflicts in already strained communities. His first project with World Vision was in a Yazidi community in Khanke, Iraq, just upstream from the contested Mosul Dam on the Tigris River. Overnight, the town’s population had doubled with the arrival of those fleeing during the conflict with ISIL. Of course, that caused tensions in the town, especially when the water infrastructure began to falter under the immense pressure of the sudden population surge. Sewage, sand and unidentified gray matter began showing up in the water system and caused diarrhea, vomiting and disease. In response, World Vision partnered with local engineers to rehabilitate the town’s water treatment facility. Today, it continues to deliver clean drinking water to the town’s residents and their internally displaced guests.

“In all conflicts, resources are used as a tool for power,” says Wicker. “But with climate change and increased populations, we’re realizing that water is more valuable and limited than we had realized in the past.”

But Wicker has also seen water projects bring disparate communities together. The German-funded Cash for Work Water program, for example, which was started in 2018, has created 9,000 temporary jobs in Jordan – half of them are for Syrian refugees and the other half are for members of the Jordanian host community. Although the two communities are friendly, says Wicker, tensions increased with the refugees’ prolonged stay, which has put pressure on already-limited jobs and resources, like water. The program employs the refugees and Jordanians – for less than eight hours a day so as not to replace a full-time job, but rather to supplement – to address erosion problems in the water dams. Sure, doing it this way is slower, says Wicker, but instead of paying a huge company to do the job quickly, the program is paying the community.

“It’s Jordanians working alongside Syrians for the betterment of Jordan,” says Wicker.

World Vision staff work to install water, sanitation, and hygiene infrrastructure before the first Syrian refugees arrive at Azraq camp in Jordan. © World Vision/ photo by Jon Warren

Then, COVID struck and added an additional layer to the challenge of WASH in fragile contexts and refugee communities. Even before the pandemic, the World Health Organization and UNICEF estimated that one in four health facilities around the world lacked basic water services. World Vision had to, at the same time, come up with creative ways to educate and build social cohesion around good hygiene practices, while at the same time encouraging people to socially distance when they access shared water points. They’ve increased water supply and encouraged people to wash their hands at home as much as possible. They’ve drawn socially distanced chalk circles at community water taps and designated certain time slots just for elderly people or others who are more susceptible to the virus. They’ve created Whatsapp groups and Sesame Street hygiene programs so they can educate communities without putting them at risk.

“COVID really turned the world upside down,” says Wicker. But it has also propelled the agenda of good hygiene as well as highlighted just how important water is for everyone’s well-being long-term.

To that end, World Vision is working hard on many fronts to encourage water conservation and improve governance of water systems, especially in the face of climate change. They’re doing so through youth art contests that depict the importance of water conservation and in which the winner’s art is shared with the community at large on billboards and water towers. They’re also partnering with Grundfos, a global leader in pump solutions, to develop water ATMS that dispense water efficiently and affordably but not for free (to discourage misuse). They’re also helping farmers implement drip irrigation, which saves 30 to 50 percent more water on agriculture.

Moving forward, World Vision has an ambitious five-year commitment to invest $1 billion to extend WASH in 41 countries, with an emphasis on reaching the most vulnerable and fragile contexts. Wicker says they’re also being further compelled by their humanitarian imperative to respond rapidly in the face of emerging emergencies. This means ensuring that local partners and governments are adequately equipped with contingency measures and supplies to respond themselves to crises as they arise. It also means working to reach overlooked urban residents, not just rural communities. And it means spreading awareness that climate change is at the front door.

“Natural disasters are happening more frequently, water is going to become more precious and there’s going to be more conflict around water,” says Wicker. “We have to realize that these emergencies aren’t just going to slowly go away.”

Goalmaker

Fred Auch Has Built a Bridge or Two. Now He’s Building Bridges to Sustainable Change

By Amber Cortes

Fred Auch likes to get things done.

“Throughout my career I’ve always been looking for efficiencies,” he says. “Let’s have an impact and let’s leverage as much as we can, so we can be as efficient as we can.”

After leading large, complex civil engineering and construction projects (he was the senior executive of the Pacific Northwest Region for PCL Construction), Auch is now helping support an international effort to bring WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) technology to a village in Senegal by raising funds through Rotary District 5030, a network of Rotary Clubs in the greater Seattle area.

Ever since he was a kid, Auch always knew he was interested in building things and solving problems. He got his first “job” in the field one summer between second and third grade.

“I spent the whole summer down the street watching and bugging the guys building the house down there,” Auch says. “They even made me a part of the crew!”

Knowing what he wanted to do was easy. It was “the how” that was the challenge.

“School and I didn’t really get along too well, because I couldn’t wait to go to work,” he explains. After college Auch worked for himself, but eventually decided that to get the opportunity to build more complex civil engineering projects, he would have to go work for a big company.

He started his career in the private sector, where he led teams that built the Mall of America in Minnesota and the Bravern Tower in Bellevue, among others. But Auch prefers the kind of work he’s done on public projects, like the extension of the Light Rail that goes to SeaTac airport—it’s much more challenging and creative.

For example, Auch says, in civil work, you may have to figure out how to build a bridge across a frozen river.

“And you have to come up with a pretty creative way to do that, considering environmental regulations and many other challenges.”

Auch’s shift into international development work happened when he retired. On the advice of a friend, he made a list of thirty things he wanted to do when he retired.

“One of the things on my list was getting involved with startups,” Auch explains.

Through a former colleague, Auch became aware of CREATE!, a non-profit based out of Eugene, Oregon that partners with communities in rural Senegal to help them take ownership of self-development projects focused on sustainable agriculture technology and practices.

Auch and a business partner learned about the work they were doing, and after a site visit to local villages CREATE! works with, they were impressed. The organization’s participatory approach includes enrolling Senegalese villages in a four-year graduation program to rehabilitate abandoned wells and bring renewable energy sources to the community.

Auch wanted to help promote the work CREATE! was doing, so, as a longtime member, he turned to his local Rotary Club to leverage some of the powerful tools in their fundraising kit.

Fred Auch

Founded in 1906, Rotary International has a unique structure. The organization matches funds raised for projects from over 35,000 local member clubs across the world. Each club chooses local and international service projects and helps problem-solvers like Auch to fundraise, promote, and leverage projects like CREATE!’s project with their new partner village, Mbossedji.

Their plan to build a functioning WASH irrigation system in the village fit perfectly within Rotary International’s global areas of focus: promoting peace, fighting disease, helping mothers and children, supporting education, protecting the environment, growing local economies and providing clean water, sanitation, and hygiene.

In fact, Auch’s local chapter (and Global Washington member), Rotary District 5030 has a long history of international WASH projects, from building a well in a village Guatemala, to facilitating a large multi-year project bringing WASH training to over 32,000 students in Ethiopian schools.

CREATE!’s overarching goals in Mbossedji are to help teach the villagers how to grow and sustain the garden, raise poultry, and create voluntary savings and loan associations—all the things they need to do to create income and support themselves nutritionally.

“And all that starts with water,” Auch says. “I mean the first step in the whole program is water.”

CREATE! and Mbossedji are about a year and half into their program. So far they’ve rehabilitated an abandoned government well, installed a solar-powered pump and a drip irrigation system for a community garden in the village.

Over 75% of families in rural Senegal depend on agriculture for their income, but due to the effects of climate change, the rainy season is now a short 3-4 months. For the rest of the year, the men may leave the village to find other opportunities in Dakar and Europe.

“Because there’s nothing for the men to do,” explains Auch.

“There’s no commerce, no occupational opportunities for the men.”

Auch says the two hectares garden in Mbossedji has started to create opportunities for the men to be productive locally, and remain close to their family.

Many experts predict that the world’s next major conflict will be over water. Add to these dire predictions the exacerbating effects of climate change. Women, who often bear the burden of water insecurity, are the key to building peace. So empowering women to take leadership through WASH is a great place to start, Auch says, noting over the years the changes he’s seen in the women of the villages that graduate from CREATE!’s programs.

“Now they’re completely self-sustaining,” says Auch. “They’re in charge. They are assertive; they’ve got ownership.”

And thanks in part to health interventions from CREATE!, Mbossedji hasn’t experienced any COVID infections. The garden there actually became an ad-hoc market for the area when others were closed.

For his role, Auch brings his love of efficiency to the table to help the program make better use of funds from Rotary and other donors. “I’ve been able to have the greatest impact in helping CREATE! think more like a for-profit business, as opposed to operating without as many goals or as many metrics.”

For the time being, Auch is happily putting his construction hat aside to let the other people solve the logistical problems. “I like the fact that somebody else has already figured this out. Now all I need to focus on is leveraging that!”

From Our Blog

From Ebola to COVID-19: Advocating for and Supplying WASH Programs and Infrastructure in Healthcare Facilities Around the World

By David Inman, PE; Global Partnerships Senior WASH Technical Advisor at Water Mission

Handwashing with safe water is a vital resource for healthcare professionals in developing countries, like Kenya. Photo © Water Mission

Despite global efforts to provide water and sanitation solutions to healthcare facilities, almost 2 billion people worldwide depend on healthcare facilities without basic water services^[1]. As a nonprofit Christian engineering organization that designs, builds, and implements water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) solutions, Water Mission is working to serve vulnerable communities through sustained WASH provision. Our work to provide WASH in healthcare facilities around the world includes advocating for patient care, equipping frontline workers, strengthening health systems, and providing engineering expertise.

Welcome New Members

Please welcome our newest Global Washington members. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with their work and consider opportunities for support and collaboration!

APCO Worldwide

APCO Worldwide is an advisory and advocacy communications consultancy helping leading public and private sector organizations navigate the challenges of today, act with agility, anticipate social risk, and build organizational reputations, relationships and solutions to succeed. apcoworldwide.com

Five Angels

Five Angels a 501 (c) (3) which assists with providing quality care and medical services to families in Shire, Ethiopia. Fiveangels.org