At charity: water, our 22-country partner network employs over 1,000 of the most inspiring, dedicated professionals you’d ever want to meet. Coronavirus is having a huge impact on everyone in the world, and it’s going to impact our partners in two significant ways.
First, coronavirus is disrupting operations. Most of the countries where we work now have nationwide lockdowns in place. In many ways, they are having the same experience we are. Staff members are doing their best to be productive from home while worrying about keeping themselves and their families safe. We’ve all experienced our own challenges in recent weeks, and you can imagine how challenging these times might be in places like Malawi or Ethiopia. All of this is happening very quickly.
Thankfully, many of these countries are several weeks behind the US, and they’ve been able to take important, preventative steps early in the outbreak. Hopefully, this will save many lives.
Second, because of the very nature of their work, our partners are going to be key to preventing, and then responding to, the outbreaks in their countries. Hygiene, handwashing, social messaging, and clean water are the most important tools in fighting coronavirus. Our partners are experts in this field. So, it’s natural that governments are leaning on them to help with response plans.
2019 was charity: water’s best fundraising year ever, and because 100% of funds go to the field, our partners are at their peak capacity right now in terms of staff and funding. In the coming weeks, we expect our partners to take an increasingly-active role in their governments’ response plans. When they do that, charity: water will be there to support them.
As the efforts in the field ramp up, we’ll keep you informed about how everything’s going.
