Random Quotes

“Our lives were finished, we had given up hope and were going to abandon our fields. But your seed, tillers, diesel and fertiliser came along and helped us to plant.”

— Burmese farmer thanking CWS partners through ACT International for Cyclone Nargis relief

Harvesting hope in Zimbabwe

'When we were building the tanks people laughed at us, but now the same people are asking us for water' says Bonisani Ndou. Many women like Bonisani have been trained by the Zimbabwe Council of Churches (ZCC) to build tanks for their communities as part of a rainwater harvesting programme. The ZCC has a mission to empower communities by ‘transforming people from subjects to citizens’.

Shupayi Mpunga, worked for the ZCC for 12 years and explains, ‘Initially some of these communities look so down hearted, wondering ‘what can we do for ourselves?’ Then you go back after three months and you see these women singing and dancing and working together’.

In the 10 years that CWS has supported the rainwater programme, around 2000 tanks have been built and the living conditions of over 10,000 people have greatly improved.