Change of plan
One thing that Mel learned a long time ago in business is that, if circumstances dictate, you change the plan – but never the goal! The plan has changed......
We are an Irish voluntary organisation, founded in 2005 and working mainly in Northern Malawi, focused on enabling the rural poor to access clean, safe, drinking water. Working with women’s self-help clusters, a package including preschool, Girl Child and adult education, and Climate Smart Agriculture including planting trees, this bottom-up approach has a sustainable and life changing impact on communities.
How can it be that so many people are deprived of this basic human right, considering that, in Northern Malawi, we can enable villagers access to clean, safe water for life at a cost of about one Euro each??
We deliver 100% of all public donations to our projects; that means no admin fees, no wages, no hidden extras are taken away. All the money goes to the people and their projects.
approx no. of PEOPLE provided with access to CLEAN WATER since 2005
Supporting GIRL CHILD students attending Secondary School in 2018-2019 academic year
rural HEALTH CENTRE built
FARMS established for RESEARCH and TEACHING
GIRLS HOSTELS supported, to help with the GIRL CHILD Project
GIRLS to UNIVERSITY from Chipita School for 2014-2015 academic year
approx. PRESCHOOLS supported with materials for roofing and carer training
CERTIFIED SEEDLINGS harvested in 2018-2019 season ready for sowing and distribution
PUMPS manufactured and installed in 2018
BOY qualified from THIRD LEVEL HORTICULTURE in 2017-2018 academic year and now co-leading Planting Trees project
GIRLS supported in NURSING COLLEGE for 2018-2019 academic year
TREES PLANTED in 2018-2019 season
From the Wells for Zoë workers in Malawi, to the Volunteers who met some of them, to those who volunteer at home, to the Board; click and see the WfZ Personnel.
Below are some of the people behind the Wells for Zoë ‘machine’. These are by no means the most important as that accolade is probably reserved for the people of Malawi who are helping themselves to a better future. More of our very special volunteers, Board members and Malawian workers can be found here.
John co-founded Wells for Zoë in 2005 after a visit to Malawi which had left him saddened and bewildered as to the suffering caused by what he saw as the lack of access to readily available water.
Co-founder of Wells for Zoë along with her husband John, a former teacher and lecturer, she leads the education team in Malawi.
Elaine graduated with a first in her Business and management degree in DIT and has been to Malawi six times volunteering. She has been very much a hands-on member of the board for many years and just recently took over the Chair in 2018.
Roseanne works as a software engineer for Verizon, Oath in their Dublin office. Roseanne has been using her IT skills to improve the WfZ website as well as her business contacts to spread the word about us since she first joined the board.
We are always in the business of installing pumps: the Malawian people dig the wells, we provide and install the pump, and hey presto they have clean safe water to drink close to their homes. The endless cycle of walking miles for (often disease-ridden) water is broken and they can then concentrate on living rather than simply surviving.
One of the next things that comes is a little farming to grow their own food and maybe even some to sell to make survival money. We harvest and distribute our own Ministry Certified Seedlings from our model farms – no GM fertiliser-hungry seedlings for us.
The other area that access to clean water lets us move onto is the Education of the Girl Child and we are very focused on this at present enabling 278 girls to attend secondary school.
These are predominantly our blog posts from Blipfoto (our daily Phlog or photo-blog) but some are other news items we want to share, coupled with progress from the various parts of the Wells for Zoë ‘machine’. Various press items and coverage are also included here. Stay tuned…
The first three below are our most recent posts and the final three are our first posts.
One thing that Mel learned a long time ago in business is that, if circumstances dictate, you change the plan – but never the goal! The plan has changed......
On my first day in the factory I saw one of the workers drilling holes into the small and big valve and – having built a CNC router at home a few years ago – I though...
If you are restless enough to be wandering the hills of Kinsale at 5.30 am one of these mornings, you might see Mel emerge from the early morning mist on his new bike. A ...
JOHN WATERS’ IRISH TIMES ARTICLE “A drop of sense in a small world” Monday, January 8, 2007 Wells for Zoë, water for life. Zoë we’ll come to. ...
JOHN WATERS’ IRISH TIMES ARTICLE “Finding a well of goodwill” Friday, April 27, 2007 The new well at M’Bama is contaminated, the wo...
Sinéad O’Connor has collaborated with former Hot Press scribe John Waters on a charity song that will be released in March The Hot Press Newsdesk, 15th Feb 2008 Waters...
We have had great help over the years from many donors but those shown below are some organisations who have shown us great support. Without their help we would not be able to operate on the scale we would like to. We still pay all administration costs ourselves and 100% of all donations go to Malawi so these organisations’ contributions all went to the heart of the matter.
We are pretty social people so have a WfZ Facebook page, a Twitter feed, an Instagram site, and a YouTube channel. We also have a photo blog site (our phlog) with Blipfoto – the people behind the one photo everyday concept of blogging. We really want you to follow us and keep up-to-date with everything we are doing. This is important to us.