FACE Africa

FACE Africa is an African founded, women led, US 501 c3 non-profit organization focused on getting sustainable clean water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) to last mile communities in Sub-Saharan Africa. Our beilief is that every person deserves the opportunity to reach their fullest potential and that is only possible if we can break the barriers of more traditional models of international aid. We partner with communities to create sustainable change and prosperity through partnerships both locally and globally, that are empowering for the individuals we serve.

FACE Africa programs focus on building the capacity and skills of local people in remote communities in Sub-Saharan Africa, who lack the basic necessities of clean water, sanitaiton and health education. Our 10-12 week training program focuses on sustainability of infrastructure, AND empowerment of the local people. Our programs strive for gender equality and equip women and girls with menstrual health education, supplies, and mentoring to help them become leaders in their communities. We team local communities how to collect funds to sustain the upkeep and repairs on their WASH infrastructure, and instill the basic principals of financial management so that communities can feel empowered to take hold of their own futures.

We focus on climate adaptive and user-friendly technologies including rain water harvesting, that the community members can maintain for up to 10 - 20 years.

SDG 1: No Poverty
Our programs attack the root causes of poverty including lack of access to clean water, toilets, education and financial stability

SDG 2: Zero Hunger
Nutrition education and now developing an extended agriculture program

SDG 3: Good Health & Well-being
Our 2.5 month health training program covers a broad range of topics including: disease prevention, menstrual health, hygiene and sanitation best practices, nutrition, health promotion in the community, preventing dehydration and malnutrition.

SDG 4 - Quality Education
No child can have a quality education without clean water, toilets and good hygiene to keep them healthy and focused, especially not girls. FACE Africa originally stood for Fund A Childs Education because we believed that education was step 1 to mitigating poverty. However, we realized quickly that even if access to quality education is available, children will not benefit from it if they are constantly missing school due to fetching water and or due to sickness. Girls stay home during their menstrual cycle without toilets and water available. Our WASH in Schools Programs focus on improving enrollment rates and attendance rates in schools

SDG 5 - Gender Equality
Lack of access to clean water closely is by far much more of burden for women and girls than men because in the communities we work, women are the water bearers. Girls start from as young as 5 years old walking miles to search for and fetch water usually with their mothers. Then theres the sanitation issue which is much more negatively impactful for girls who stay home from school or drop out completely when they hit puberty due to shame and embarrassment of having their period at school. Our programs focus heavily on including women and girls and raising up their voices to become active leaders and change makers in their communities.

SDG 6 - Clean Water and Sanitation
This is fundamental focus points for FACE Africa Programs. Every community development project we do involves installation of a clean water source, sanitation blocks and hand washing stations. We also incorporate Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) into all of our projects to aim to achieve 100% Open Defecation Free status in communities, because open defecation causes more death and disease than local of clean water.

SDG 9 - Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure
We focus on building sustainable, durable and climate conscious infrastructure in communities. Our new latrine design incorporates rain water harvesting innovation for hand washing and flushing & composting septic tanks.

SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities
Our team focus on the most last mile communities in the districts and countries we work in. We believe that in order to reduce inequalities we must start with lifting up the poorest communities first. As Malala said, "how can we succeed when half of us are held back?"

Our other focus SDGs are: 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

Our organization focuses on capacity building at every level. From training and building the capacity and skills of local community members in health, financial management and maintenance and repair, to empowering government bodies to do the right thing in their communities and leave no one behind. We believe that we need strong and empowered partnerships in order to make true and sustainable impact. We also believe in constantly learning from our mistakes and becoming stronger. We have a strong monitoring and evaluation program which informs whether our projects are effective or need improvement.

We have brought sustainable clean water to almost 200 communities
We have built over 100 latrines and hand washing stations
We have created over 500 local jobs in the countries we have served
We have reduced the rate of diarrheal diseases by at least 82% after each water project
We have trained more than 50% women in every committee we have formed in the communities
We have completed 2.5-3 months of training in every community we have done a WASH project in for the past 2 years.
Our executive team are 100% women