Community ownership
Every water point and facility is managed by a trained local committee from day one.
Try: “WASH”, “women's empowerment”, “Sierra Leone”, “climate resilience”.
Preventable illness, much of it carried in unsafe water, remains a leading cause of lost school days, lost income and lost lives in the communities we serve. Distance from clinics and overstretched health workers deepen the problem.
SDI takes an integrated water, sanitation, hygiene and health approach. We rehabilitate water points, promote safe sanitation and hygiene, and strengthen the frontline services that keep people well, working through existing clinics and community structures rather than parallel to them.
Water and health committees manage and maintain what we build, and locally trained promoters carry hygiene knowledge from household to household. Because ownership sits with the community, a water point installed today is still flowing years from now.
Practical, community-led activities that turn commitment into measurable change.
Rehabilitating and installing safe, reliable water sources within reach of every household.
Supporting the construction and use of latrines that keep communities and water sources clean.
Community-led hygiene behaviour change that turns knowledge into everyday habit.
Bringing prevention, screening and referrals closer to the people who need them.
Improving the supplies, skills and systems that keep local health services running.
Water, toilets and hygiene facilities that keep children, especially girls, healthy and in class.
Local structures trained to operate, maintain and sustain every system installed.
The same principles guide every SDI programme, shaping how we deliver this one.
Every water point and facility is managed by a trained local committee from day one.
We combine water, sanitation, hygiene and health so improvements reinforce one another.
We strengthen existing clinics and authorities rather than building parallel services.
Spare parts, skills and savings plans keep systems working long after installation.
The community of Njala · Sierra Leone
For years, families in Njala organised their days around water. Women and children walked long distances to collect from a distant, unsafe source, and the illness that followed kept children out of school and adults away from their fields. When the community decided that had to change, they worked with SDI to rehabilitate a nearby borehole and formed a water committee to run it. Members set a small maintenance fund, trained two local mechanics and agreed rules everyone helped write. Today clean water flows minutes from home. Cases of waterborne illness have fallen, girls who once spent mornings fetching water now spend them in class, and the committee has begun planning a second point for a neighbouring hamlet. The pump belongs to Njala, and so does the future it makes possible.
Entire communities, with particular benefit for women and girls who carry the burden of collecting water, and young children most vulnerable to waterborne illness.
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, an integrated approach that tackles the linked causes of preventable disease rather than any one of them alone.
In partnership with local authorities, prioritising areas with the greatest need and the strongest local commitment to manage and maintain systems.
Each system is handed to a trained committee with a maintenance fund, local mechanics and a supply of spare parts, so upkeep is planned from the start.
Funders and partners can support WASH systems, clinic strengthening or full programmes. Contact us to explore how to work together.
Trained volunteers and stronger systems that carry care to the last mile.
View ProgrammeSchools, learning resources and skills training that keep children and youth in the classroom.
View ProgrammeResilient food systems so no household has to choose between meals and the future.
View ProgrammeFund a specific activity, support the whole programme, or partner with SDI to reach more communities. Every contribution is invested in results we measure and share.