Gahararo Water Project 💧

If you’ve been following us for some time, you know that we work with the indigenous Batwa people of Burundi, the single poorest people group in the world.  The villages we work with in are Batwa villages called Gahararo and Ruganirwa.  We have done porridge programs, school uniform projects, housing projects, solar lighting installations, and water in these villages.

We have seen miracles happen in these Batwa villages.  For example, the Batwa constructed a church of their own volition and did so with their own funds and without asking us for help.  In the same way, they constructed pit toilets, one for every two houses throughout the community.  Again, this was of their own volition and without any request to us for funds.  These things never would have happened when we first arrived on the scene in 2012.

Another one of these miracles occurred while I was just in Burundi.  The water system we paid to have constructed in 2018 serves 6000 people, Batwa, Hutu, and Tutsi alike.  However, because the system was intended for the Batwa, they administer the system and collect a small fee from users of the system.

There is a mining cooperative near Gahararo consisting of 25 families who work a small pit gold mines.  They recently asked if the water system could be extended to their small village.  The Batwa agreed, and using money in the water committee’s coffers, they completed an extension of the water system to the mining cooperative.  This is huge!  Along with the church and the pit toilets, this extension of the water system shows that the Batwa are developing an ethic of cooperation and care for their fellow Burundians.  I actually believe this is one of the greatest successes GCA has ever experienced.