Imagine a community where children and women walk miles every single day, carrying heavy containers, just for a sip of water. That was the daily reality for families in the Ibex Compound in Katete, Zambia, where a severe and prolonged drought had left the community desperate for clean, safe water. The few water sources that remained were unreliable and often contaminated, putting the health of every family at risk, and long queues — and even conflicts — over the limited water that was available had become a routine part of daily life.
The Process
The solution the community and our team landed on was a lasting one: drilling a borehole right in the heart of the village, so that clean water would no longer depend on the rains or on how far someone was willing to walk. After months of sharing this need with supporters, the project was finally fully funded. Rather than let the news travel secondhand, our team made the trip out to Ibex Compound to share it in person with the compound’s chairperson, before any drilling work even began.
The Ibex Compound's story
The Results
Watch below as the chairperson’s face lights up with joy and disbelief the moment he learns that the community’s borehole is fully funded — a reaction that speaks for the whole village behind him. A borehole represents so much more than water: it’s dignity for mothers who no longer have to choose between spending their morning fetching water or caring for their families, it’s school mornings handed back to children who once spent them walking miles with heavy containers instead of sitting in a classroom, and it’s an end to the daily queues and conflicts that scarcity had forced on the community for far too long.
The community learns the news