Dear Friends,
Last year, we set an ambitious goal: to serve more than 800,000 people with safe water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) solutions. It was our highest target to date.
With your faithful partnership, and in the midst of an unusually difficult year, we exceeded this vision as God gave us the opportunity to serve more than 1.6 million people around the world. We are delighted to share a few stories of the lives impacted in this 2020 Annual Report.
Together, we responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, providing safe water, handwashing stations, and hygiene education to vulnerable communities. While these initiatives were Water Mission’s priority, we also continued to support efforts associated with engineering innovation, disaster response, and community development.
As you will read in the following stories, Water Mission celebrated several milestones this year. In Honduras, we installed the 1,000th latrine associated with the Safe Water Western Honduras initiative. In Uganda, we ensured reliable access to safe water was made available to over 460,000 refugees—an increase of more than 40% from 2019. Our groundbreaking technical guide for design and installation of solar-powered water systems, written in partnership with UNICEF, was translated into French and Spanish to allow for greater accessibility. And although our Walk for Water events were held virtually, people joined us from 35 countries—more than ever before.
This year we also launched the Global Water Center, a new nonprofit in the WASH sector focused on eradicating the global water crisis by driving sector-wide collaboration around standards, accountability, and transparency. The Global Water Center has started the process of convening safe water organizations, corporate partners, and governmental agencies to work together to accelerate an end to the global water crisis. The immediate focus is establishing standards and developing an industry-wide remote monitoring platform to facilitate transparency and outcome-based accountability.
Amid all this exciting activity, we remain focused on our vision: that all people have safe water and an opportunity to experience God’s love.
Thank you for playing such an important role in helping serve those in need with best-in-class WASH solutions. With your support, we will continue building on this work with innovation and global collaboration until our vision is a reality.
God bless you,
George C. Greene III, PE, PhD
Co-founder, Executive Chair
George C. Greene, IV, PE
CEO and President
P.S. 2021 marks Water Mission’s 20th anniversary, which you will hear more about as the year progresses. As we celebrate this milestone, we are humbled and grateful for the work we have accomplished through God’s provision and partners like you.