Ending poverty begins with clean water. Poor health, hunger, and a lack of education are symptoms of the true problem–no clean water. You can help change that today by supporting JNN Foundation in the campaign to make clean water available to women in Africa.

The Solution

By ensuring that schools have sustainable access to clean water, we will make a fundamental difference to the lives of thousands of children. Giving the gift of safe water means that children are free from thirst and they will have a better chance of growing up healthy and educated. We can achieve this through two very simple solutions:

Rainwater harvesting:
From previous experience, we know that three water tanks (10,000 litre capacity each) are able to store enough water for children and teachers to use during the dry season once other nearby sources have been exhausted. The tanks collect water during the rainy season from guttering installed on classrooms, providing a cost effective and simple solution to water problems at schools.

Boreholes:
Boreholes benefit thousands of individuals from school communities, also providing a sustainable water source for livestock and crop production.

How you can help:

• We urgently need people to sponsor water tanks and boreholes. By giving the gift of water to children, teachers and families, you will save lives.
• A $2,000 donation would pay for one water tank, enough to supply safe water for two classes of children.
• Donating $8,400 will allow us to install guttering and three water tanks, providing enough water for a whole school community to benefit from during times of drought.
• Donating $15,500 would pay for the installation of a borehole as well as training for the community to maintain it, providing a sustainable water source.
• Farmers, business people and government organizations in Africa have the opportunity to invest in profitable greenhouse agriculture. Goldfields Mining House decided to establish a flower growing project at one of their facilities in Carletonville, South Africa. Vegtech was awarded the tender based on the specifications set down by the client. Greenhouses protect crops from too much heat or cold, shield plants from dust storms and blizzards, and help to keep out pests. Light and temperature control also improves food production in marginal environments

Kenya starts greenhouse tomato farming:

Kenya has started greenhouse production of tomatoes, raising hopes that the popular vegetable will become available throughout the year at affordable prices. In the new system developed by the Kenya Horticulture Development Program (KHDP) and agricultural inputs suppliers Seminis Seeds and Osho Chemical Industries, a grower requires about 240 square metres of land and a greenhouse kit to get started. (Read More)

Solar Power in Africa:

When the sun goes down over large swathes of the developing world, the 1.3 billion people currently living without access to an electricity connection are plunged into darkness.
According to figures from the International Energy Agency, at least 20% of the planet’s inhabitants are still without the simple luxury of a light-switch.
From the shantytowns of Sub-Saharan Africa to the sprawling slums of the Indian sub-continent, night-time brings with it a noxious ritual of candles, gas lamps and open fires.
“Fuel-powered light is dangerous, polluting, and expensive and dim,” says Dr. Evan Mills, founder of the Lumina Project, an initiative that promotes low-carbon alternatives to fuel-based lighting in the developing world.

According to studies conducted by Mills and his colleagues at the Berkeley Laboratory at the University of California, this “dirty light” consumes 77 billion liters of fuel worldwide, costing its predominantly impoverished end-users a total of $38 billion annually.
And they don’t call it dirty for nothing. If a single kerosene lantern burns for an average of four hours a day it emits over 100kg of CO2 a year, says Mills. “The combustion of fuel for lighting consequently results in 190 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to one-third the total emissions from the UK,” he adds.

Pay-as-you-go products may be synonymous with mobile phones but a solar energy service in Africa is harnessing the popular business model to bring affordable electricity to the continent’s remotest communities.

IndiGo solar enables rural households far removed from their country’s electrical grid to generate their own power via a photovoltaic panel and battery pack.
Users then have the option of purchasing the energy the device produces for as little as $1 a week.
The technology aims to replace environmentally harmful lighting practices such as burning kerosene oil, which contributes 190 million tons of annual CO2 emissions according to studies conducted by the Berkley Laboratory at the University of California and can cost users up to 10 times as much.
“Pay-as-you-go solar is a good system as we now have light inside,” says Nyungura James Ode, a farmer from Mantarra Village in South Sudan and one of the first to sign up to the project.
“(We) can do more work at home and be more productive farming. Light is better (and) mothers can tend to baby at night more easily, give medicine, change clothes and diaper,” he adds.