Cora LeMar
Water Reuse Technologist
Making an impact: Carollo and Water For People in Malawi, Africa
September 30, 2025
When we think about our impact on the world, we may look to our families, our work achievements, or even our social or charity activities. Sometimes that impact may seem rather small, until we step back and consider the combined efforts of everyone involved.
International Water Crisis
From safe drinking water to a working toilet, access to clean water and sanitation is a fundamental human right, yet it’s something many of us take for granted every day.
- One in four people—over 2.2 billion globally—lack access to safely managed drinking water or basic hand-washing facilities.
- Nearly one in two people—3.5 billion globally—lack access to safely managed sanitation.
Water For People Impacting Everyone Forever
Water For People works internationally in 10 countries across Central America, South America, East Africa, India, and since 2024, the United States.
Unlike other water and sanitation organizations that focus on short-term wins, Water For People’s model is Everyone Forever.
- Everyone. Every household, health clinic, and school in a district has access to water and sanitation services.
- Forever. Services are sustainable and governments and communities can maintain them for generations.
Water For People focuses on protecting water supplies at the source and tap, training mechanics, teaching proper disposal and hygiene practices, and establishing supply chains for parts and repairs. It also assists with advocating for long-term water policies and creating local water and sanitation utilities.
In-country staff are crucial—making a viable, impactful, and lasting change. Water For People measures Everyone Forever annually and doesn’t call its work finished until it’s confident water will flow long after it leaves a district.
Water For People Global Impacts as of 2024
- 630,000+ People with new/improved sanitation services
- 520,000 People with new/improved water services
- 480,000+ People with hygiene education
- 233 Schools with improved access to WASH services
- 55 Health clinics with improved access to WASH services
Partnership Built on Shared Values
Carollo has partnered with Water For People for more than 19 years, enabling access to safe and sustainable drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services to meet the needs of people across 10 countries.
Over the past eight years, Carollo has sent our staff on Water For People Impact Exchange trips to countries in South and Central America, Africa, and India.
2025 Carollo and Water For People Impact Exchange
In 2025, the adventure took place in Malawi, Africa. The week-long trip was filled with meetings with the Malawi Water For People staff, a sanitation entrepreneur, a micro-financing institution, tribal villages, homes, and schools that have been impacted by the organization.
Malawi is known as the “Warm Heart of Africa” and the people lived up to that name in abundance. Everyone—from Water For People staff to the rural and peri-urban communities that Carollo staff visited—was welcoming and eager to share how WASH access has improved their daily lives.
A Comprehensive, Connected Approach to Global Water Issues
Water For People’s comprehensive, connected, and integrated approach is transforming communities. Its contributions have reduced long water queues by installing additional taps to safe water sources, curbed disease with in-home latrines, and enabled girls to attend school year-round by providing menstrual hygiene products.
The organization ensures project sustainability every step of the way through implementation of:
- Engineers and plumbers within each community well-versed in system management and maintenance.
- Community fund managers responsible for collecting resources needed to maintain projects in perpetuity.
- Micro-finance institutions leveraged to help fund sanitation projects—allowing access to beneficial solutions that lead to empowerment.
- Sanitation engineering products and services used in a fit-for-purpose manner with different types of latrine options based on age or ability.
From Small Steps to Big Rewards
Each year, through our workplace giving campaign, Carollo offices—as well as clients and friends of Carollo—contribute to Water For People.
Carollo’s staff and management donations over the past 19 years have totaled more than $1.2 million. When these funds are leveraged with co-investment from local communities and governments and combined with the time saved when women and children no longer need to collect water, the impact increases seven fold.
Carollo’s 2025 contribution of $173,000 is actually worth more than $1.8 million to the communities served.
Typical costs in Malawi Kwacha (MK) vs. US Dollars
- Water connection fee – 50,000 MK / $29 USD
- Monthly water service fee – 5,000 MK / $2.90 USD
- New latrine – 800,000 MK / $457 USD
- Latrine emptying fee (every two to three years) – 90,000 MK / $51 USD
