Frequently Asked Questions:

Why should we choose to donate to you?

Our experience is that by giving people the tools and training they need to improve their lives they are more than willing to use them. People living in extreme poverty are resilient and can be assisted by sharing the knowledge we have learned. We have learned that one of the best ways to eliminate disease is to drink clean uncontaminated water and practise proper sanitation and hygiene. We work alongside communities to build on their strengths to eliminate diseases that contribute to trapping people in a life of poverty.

How much of my donation is spent on administration and how much goes to paying salaries of Canadians?

Our budget is approximately $130,000 CDN per year. Our only costs in Canada are approximately $1260, which includes insurance and bank charges. We do not have any paid employees in Canada. The remainder goes directly to fund the project in Malawi. We operate two factories in Malawi with 10 full time staff and 3 factory guards plus many volunteers. We have a volunteer from Canada who is our Country Director overseeing all our activities in Malawi. We do not pay her a salary, but we do cover her living expenses and subsistence in Malawi. Since we have no corporate presence in Malawi but need to do business there, we are required to operate in Malawi through agreements (contracts) with qualified Malawian agents. As we are a Canadian Registered Charity, the CRA Charities Directorate has reviewed and approved our agency agreements. The agents handle all our payroll and statutory matters for the Malawian employees, including payroll processing, payroll remittances, employee pension administration, labour code interpretation and other governmental and statutory requirements. We pay each agent a 7% Admin fee, based on its respective Malawi Water Project related operating costs. Without these agents we could not do our work. Our Malawian agents, the Anglican Diocese of Northern Malawi and the Anglican Diocese of Southern Malawi, are registered charities in Malawi and share our goals. Our organization is managed by volunteers. These volunteers form our Board of Directors and our management team in Canada. The Canadian team of volunteers performs the following functions: CEO, CFO, Strategic Planning, Policy Development, IT training and support, the development, training and implementation of monitoring systems, training on project management, team building, supervision, payroll, and budgeting. Learn about our accountabilty structure here

What are your goals as an organization? Where do you see this project going in the future?

We have three main goals in Malawi, with a focus on rural areas with the greatest need for clean water. Our main goals are:

1. to reduce water borne illness by providing training on proper sanitation and hygiene,
2. to provide easier access to better quality water for villages by repairing broken water well pumps and
3. to provide safe water to families by constructing and installing the household biosand water filter. We have recently expanded our activities to include borehole repair and we are currently receiving training to learn how to facilitate Community Health Clubs. These community groups empower women to work toward improving family health and living standards by encouraging and helping each other change their health and hygiene practices through songs, dances, skits and slogans.

What's a Biosand water filter and how can I find out more about them?

The household biosand filter works on the basis of the slow sand filter. It was developed by Dr. David Manz at the University and Calgary. You can learn more about the filter by going to www.cawst.org or https://manzwaterinfo.ca/biosand-filter

What steps are you taking to pass on knowledge and skills to those who benefit from the project?

Our focus is training our agents’ employees on how to construct, install and maintain the biosand water filter, how to repair broken boreholes and how to improve the health and sanitation of villages in need, and to support our employees in carrying out those tasks.

How are you empowering the people you are helping to take over and address their problems?

We are training villagers on how to improve their health by changing their behaviour to improve their sanitation and hygiene. With proper knowledge villagers are able to eliminate water borne diseases and reduce the occurrence of communicable diseases which in turn leads to a reduction in poverty. In addition, through their participation in the project, our agents now have in-house knowledge and skills to continue the work, if they can find alternate funding, even if we withdraw. We hope that many of the partnerships we have developed in Malawi would make arrangements with our agents in such a case.

Who is responsible for making financial decisions? How are the funds monitored?

The Project is operated by two agents in Malawi, the Anglican Diocese of Northern Malawi and the Anglican Diocese of Southern Malawi. Funds raised in Canada are transferred to an account in Malawi controlled by the Canadian Board of Healthy Lives International Society which is the registered Canadian Society that operates the Malawi Water Project. On an as needed basis the funds are transferred to the agents’ bank accounts to operate the Project. An annual budget is prepared in December for the following fiscal year. Our two Field Coordinators request funds as needed to operate the Project and submit a detailed financial expenditure report each month along with receipts.

What are your operational challenges and what plans do you have to overcome them?

The communities most in need of our assistance are remote and the terrain is challenging. Many of the communities most in need are located along the shore of Lake Malawi and can only be reached by boat. Along with our partners we are distributing filters and following up on those filters by boat. Filters that are being delivered in hilly terrain with no access by road are being carried to households by villagers on foot.

How do you measure the impact of your organization’s operations?

We record how many people have received information on proper sanitation and hygiene; we obtain GPS coordinates for all our filters so we can view their locations on the map. We record how many people are benefiting from having clean water in their homes. We record the individual boreholes that have been repaired along with their GPS Coordinates and the number of people using each repaired well. We also rely on the anecdotal reporting of improvements in health and well-being from users of the filters and recipients of hygiene and sanitation training.

What is your relationship with other organizations working Malawi in the field of sanitation and hygiene?

We work in partnership with organizations to bring clean water to rural villages. Our partner organizations purchase filters from us to deliver to the communities they are working with and work with us on disseminating information on proper sanitation and hygiene. We produced a training manual on this topic with St. John International. Partner organizations have also taught our team members new skills such as borehole repair.