Detour! How the money for a project ended up with the neighbouring village

Sometimes social projects do not develop according to plan because fluctuations in prices, politics or simply the weather are unpredictable. Just the same applies to projects on betterplace: One always has to expect that donations may need to be used differently than originally planned. The great thing about betterplace.org is, however, that thanks to the direct contact between supporters and project managers, donors stay involved in the project development along the way. Otherwise, we might never have heard about this fabulous story:

In March 2008, Katrina Smith registered a project on betterplace.org with the aim of financing a water supply system for Mukureku – a remote village on the Indonesian island Flores. Katrina had previously been working as a Public Health consultant on Flores and now wanted to support the community in setting up the much-needed water supply. In the project description, she stated: “The 237 families that make up the community of Mukureku have given up waiting for the government, or anyone else to solve their problems.“ The villagers had already collected money from every family in the community and, together with the local NGO Tananua, worked out a plan for the construction of the water supply. The only thing missing was more funding.

They raised this from the betterplace community. After nearly nine months, the required funds were gathered and the implementation of the project endeavour could in fact have begun had it not been for the four month rainy-season on Flores, rendering construction work practically impossible. And in the meantime, the community of Mukureku won a competition for government funds to build a water supply!

Upon receiving this sensational news from Indonesia – Katrina lived in Ecuador by then – she decided without further ado to use the donations collected on betterplace.org to support a neighbouring village on Flores. Thus, not only is Mukureku now equipped with a functioning water supply, but also the community of Taniwoda. In Taniwoda, the funds raised could even finance the setup of two water pumps. How exactly the project was implemented and the new system is managed sustainably can be read on the project blog. This is a great example of how donors on betterplace.org receive direct feedback about the actual project development, and how a situation can be made even better when things don’t work out the way they were planned!

PS. And speaking of water: have you already checked out the betterplace LAB Water Knowledge Portal?