Walking on the roads in the village of Nshupu, a common sight is children and women carrying heavy loads of water atop their heads. They can spend over two hours a day collecting water. That means less time for work, school, farming, and other activities that could help alleviate poverty.

Most of us in the developed world take for guaranteed that we’re able to just turn on the faucet in our homes for clean water. While water is a basic necessity of life, UNICEF reports that an estimated 44% of Tanzanians don’t have access to clean water and 4,000 children die annually in the nation due to preventable water-borne diseases.  Yet a surprisingly simple and sustainable solution can have a profound impact on Tanzania’s rural communities.

Precious Project has initiated a campaign to provide village school children direct access to clean drinking water. As part of its role in investing in sustainable development programs for the village, Precious Project will leverage the one clean and maintainable source of water – rainwater. Precious Project’s solution is to harvest rainwater by installing a catchment system (gutters) on the Precious school rooftop(s). The catchments will direct the rainfall into a 10,000-liter sanitary holding tank. The total cost for materials and installation using local labor will be $5000.  The investment will provide safe drinking water for up to 230 village school children daily.