Our goals – Saware Dicha

Children walk long distances to reach school, facing steep paths and dangerous animals.
“ I suffered from that already when I was a child” says co-founder Kebede Dache Dalacho.
Lack of pure drinking water: Children and women walk long distances to fetch water, but the water is not clean. This makes people – especially children -sick.
Cooking on open three-stone fires, often inside the houses. Collecting firewood is very time-consuming, again mainly for children and women.
No electricity: Households rely on kerosene lamps for lighting.
Women and girls experience inequality, hard life and no income opportunities, for example:
• Girls attend school less often than boys
• Children and women carry firewood and water
• Their health is disproportionately affected by indoor air pollution from kerosene lamps and open fires

“Improving life starts with clean water, better health, education and empowerment – and by creating additional income opportunities”

Step by step we are improving living conditions – in a sustainable way:

Creating access to clean drinking water within the village
Introducing improved cooking solutions that produce less smoke and require less wood
Improving access to education and ensuring quality education. Our long term plan is to build a primary school inside the village and establish an education system which preserves the natural environment and teaches sustainable ways of improving life.

And in the long term, our goals are to:

Build skills and competences in health and hygiene, the benefits of solar energy, rainwater harvesting, organic agricultural practices, drip irrigation, and permaculture
Create income opportunities for local people, especially women, through sustainable, environmentally and climate-friendly practices.

1. Access to clean drinking water

2. Improved cooking solutions

Introducing cookstoves instead of open fires, adapted to local food and needs
Improved cookstoves use less wood, can burn different type of biomass, and produce less smoke
Providing trainings in production, installation and use
Creating small local production businesses

3. Access to better education through a model primary school in the village

For children from grade 1 to 6
And for adults who did not receive sufficient education
Construction with modern expertise combined with traditional techniques
Integrating solar power for lighting and electricity – especially for adult night classes
Creating ownership: community members will be involved from the start and help build the school, ensuring responsibility and care
Fairly paid qualified teachers for motivated classes.
The school is for both girls and boys, with special encouragement for parents to send their daughters

4. Trainings for adults (and children) / “Competence center”

5. Business opportunities and income generation

Production and sales of improved cookstoves
Additional organic cultivation of local products (such as Moringa and local herbs) for sales abroad
Solar kiosk: local sales (+ maintenance) of small solar systems
Integrating and empowering women