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  • covid-19-response
  1. About us
  2. Our COVID-19 response

Our COVID-19 response

This year, the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) has created a devastating threat to the health and security of people all around the world.

Throughout this period, a key message from the World Health Organisation (WHO) has been to wash your hands regularly in order to help curb the spread of the virus. But for many dryland communities following this simple guidance is simply not an option as they do not have a reliable, local source of clean water.

Thanks to our generous supporters and in-country partners, despite the recent challenges and restrictions, we continue to support dryland communities across Africa to deliver sand dam projects and school water tanks. 

Watch how a sand dam works here: 

We have launched new programmes in Ethiopia and Malawi, are in the process of developing a new partnership Tanzania, as well as continued our work in Kenya, Mozambique (where we also have a new partner) and Zimbabwe.

These projects – most of which include climate-smart agriculture and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) training - will enable community members to support their families with sufficient food and water, to build climate resilience by re-greening and sustaining their environment, whilst also safeguarding their health and halting the spread of coronavirus during this most challenging time.

With global cases of COVID-19 still escalating, now more than ever before, we need your help so we can continue building sand dams and school water tanks (where applicable) before more families fall victim to the pandemic. 

Here is just an example of how your support could help:

£20 could provide a community with 4 bags of cement for their sand dam

£30 could supply a community with a rake, gardening fork, shovel and watering cans, to plant trees for fruit, fuel and fodder

£60 could provide a community with a roll of barbed wire, to reinforce and strengthen their sand dam during construction

Please donate what you can to support dryland communities to reduce global health threats with access to clean water

Please select a donation amount (required)
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Latest

  • Excellent win 2020 iF Social Impact Prize!

    Excellent win 2020 iF Social Impact Prize!

    Excellent Development are awarded an International Forum Design GmbH (iF) Social Impact Prize for our sand dam project work in southeast Kenya.

  • Empower families to feed themselves

    Empower families to feed themselves

    We need your help so that we can continue to support more dryland communities to build sand dams and implement climate-smart farming, providing vital food and water supplies to vulnerable families.

  • £83,443 raised in Big Give Christmas Challenge 2020!

    £83,443 raised in Big Give Christmas Challenge 2020!

    In this year's Big Give Christmas Challenge you helped us raise over £80,000 to build two sand dams and implement a range of environmental protection measures in southern Zimbabwe.

  • Missing school and education due to COVID-19 and lack of water

    Missing school and education due to COVID-19 and lack of water

    Kasangi Simon, a 12-year-old pupil at Nzeluni Primary School, southeast Kenya, shares her experience coping with water shortage during the COVID-19 pandemic, and what difference a school water tank would make.

Most read

  • What is a sand dam?

    What is a sand dam?

  • 1 million sand dams for 0.5 billion people by 2040

    1 million sand dams for 0.5 billion people by 2040

    Read about our plan to directly support other organisations to build sand dams, in turn, realising our vision to support millions of the world’s poorest people by helping them to transform their own lives through water and soil conservation in drylands.

  • Donate

    Donate

    Please donate what you can to transform lives with sand dams and clean water.

  • Zimbabwe (Partner: Dabane Trust)

    Zimbabwe (Partner: Dabane Trust)

    Dabane Trust and Excellent are working together with rural communities in the semi-arid areas of Zimbabwe to develop simple, appropriate and sustainable water abstraction and food production systems.

  • Watch how sand dams work

    Watch how sand dams work

    Film explaining how sand dams work and their potential impact in the world's drylands

  • Sand dam manual

    Sand dam manual

    For everything you need to know about building sand dams, click here to read (and download for free!), Sand Dams: A Practical & Technical Manual.

  • The challenge

    The challenge

    Find out what are drylands, why they are they are such harsh regions to live, how sand dams are applicable in drylands and what difference they can make to over 40% of the world's land surface.

  • Job opportunities

  • September 2018 sand dam expedition with Barclays Isle of Man

    September 2018 sand dam expedition with Barclays Isle of Man

    Barclays Isle of Man volunteers and community members share highlights from the construction of a sand dam they worked together to build in southeast Kenya in September 2018.

  • Working together with Rotary

    Working together with Rotary

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Registered in England & Wales No. 4432166. Registered charity No. 1094478

Excellent Development, 7-14 Great Dover Street London, SE1 4YR, United Kingdom