Drop of Water

Hermella conceived the idea of Drop of Water (formerly called Help for a Drop of Water) in 2009 with six of her friends. They had the chance to meet Matt Damon, award-winning actor and Co-Founder of Water.org. In Ethiopia, 62 million people lack access to safe water and 97 million lack access to improved sanitation (1).

After studying civil engineering, she formally founded Drop of Water to tackle the severe water crisis attacking rural communities in Ethiopia. The organisation engages with university students and educates them in hygiene awareness as peer educators for rural communities. Between 50-60 young volunteers have been trained to support their local communities in this manner.

Drop of Water also installs clean water solutions in the communities, which are designed and chosen to suit the specific geological landscape. The installation could be a bore hole, spring water protection, or other equivalent clean water installation.

The other aspect of its work is to implement climate resilience water safety plans to help the maintenance of the clean water sources. These different stages have, through education, awareness, installation and maintenance, provided clean water access to over 30,000 rural Ethiopians in five different regions in Ethiopia.

Hermella personally has spoken internationally on clean water and the water crisis, and continues to connect and collaborate with One Young World Ambassadors working in a similar field.

Source:
(1) https://water.org/our-impact/ethiopia/