Thanks to the incredible support of our donors, we drilled 21 new water wells in Zambia’s Sinazongwe, Luano and Ngabwe districts last year. The new wells are serving a population of more than 7,750 people. This brings our total count to 106 wells, serving more than 26,500 people.
To maintain the new pumps at each well, we trained 33 community area pump minders. These pump minders also helped rehabilitate three broken boreholes.
We also helped supply tool kits to facilitate the area pump minders in servicing and maintaining the community boreholes. Thanks to you, training people in the community to maintain their wells empowers them to change and improve their sanitation habits.
Along with drilling wells, we implemented the face washing phase of SAFE. Thanks to our donors, we held education sessions teaching improved sanitation habits to help reduce serious illness and trachoma.
Equally exciting, in partnership with the Maamba General Hospital last year, we implemented our eye health care model. Under this model and with donor support, we’ll renovate some spaces to help the hospital deliver more effective eye health care. Since our partnership began we’ve supported 124 eye care surgeries.
Partnerships contribute to our success. Along with our donors, our partner Standard Chartered Bank’s Seeing is Believing has supported our community health workers who conduct door-to-door surveys. Working in three compounds in Lusaka, these workers will reach a total population of 622,034 by the end of the survey.
We also established three primary eye clinics in each compound and have seen an increase in referrals. With your investment, we’ve seen an increase in surgeries performed by our partner University Teaching Hospital. The hospital holds a surgery clinic once a week. Among other eye surgeries, the clinic averages six cataract surgeries during those clinic days.
Together, we’re reaching remote communities and making quality eye care accessible for everyone.