Published in April 2024

Our 2024 Big Give Green Match Fund campaign has now closed. If you missed it and would still like to make a donation towards our work, click here!

In this year's Big Give Green Match Fund campaign, supporters helped to raise an amazing grand total £22,456.19 (including match funding and GiftAid) that will go towards enabling a community living in Mozambique to build a sand dam, implement sustainable agriculture, and practice environmental protection techniques. This will help to enhance the community’s food and water security, safeguard their surrounding environment, and strengthen local smallholder farmers’ resilience to the effects of climate change.

On behalf of the dryland communities we support, we'd like to say a big thank you to all supporters, donors, and campaign champion funder (Postcode Green Trust) for their generosity.

About Mozambique

Mozambique is one of the poorest and most disaster-prone countries in the world, ranked at 183 out of 193 countries on the UN Human Development Index. The country is vulnerable to extreme climatic conditions, such as droughts, cyclones and floods, which often destroy key infrastructure and restrict economic growth. This in turn contributes to widespread poverty, as well as frequent food and water shortages.

These challenges are particularly prevalent in Mozambique’s rural drylands, where extreme poverty is rife. Over 70% of poor households live in rural areas and rely on rain-fed agriculture as their main source of food and income. In the wake of natural disasters like drought, rural communities are immediately exposed to the threat of food insecurity since they have few income-generating alternatives to agriculture. As such, water scarcity, environmental degradation, and unreliable weather patterns pose a significant threat to their livelihoods and wellbeing.

The World Food Programme estimates that over half of Mozambique’s households are affected by food insecurity and approximately one-third by chronic food insecurity. In addition, only around 60% of rural people have access to safe water.

About sand dams

Sand dams are a sustainable rainwater harvesting solution that store up to 40 million litres of water (which meets WHO drinking standards), providing people with year-round clean water. Unlike other water solutions, sand dams recharge groundwater levels and enable vegetation to regenerate. Combined with environmental protection measures, including tree planting, land degradation is reduced, increasing soil fertility so that farmers can grow more crops.

Watch how sand dams work here:

About our Green Match Fund campaign 

The Big Give run the UK’s biggest match funding campaigns offering supporters of participating charities the opportunity to have their donations doubled!

This year Sand Dams Worldwide took part in the The Big Give's Green Match Fund campaign once again, raising £12,681.25 (including GiftAid) in online donations, which were DOUBLED for free by our generous campaign champion funder, in turn helping us reach our overall target of £20,000!

These funds will go towards supporting a community living in Manica province in Mozambique to construct a sand dam, providing a lifelong supply of clean water, whilst also helping to transform the surrounding environment by recharging groundwater levels. In addition, the community will be supported to implement a range of environmental protection measures, such as gabions, bunds, and silt traps (depending on what is appropriate to the specific site selected). 

Further measures will include establishing a tree nursery, helping to reforest the area around the sand dam whilst providing a source of food, fodder for livestock, firewood, and medicine. The community will also be trained to support and manage natural tree regeneration and reforestation, using methods such as truncheons and communal woodlots.

Cesario Finiasse (pictured), a member of the Nhamatiquiti community, had this to say about a similar project that took place in his community in Mozambique:

“Thanks to the sand dam, we won’t have water issues anymore. In the future we will have healthy gardens and produce vegetables. We will have enough water for drinking, for other domestic use, such as cooking and bathing, and even for our animals.”

Cesario Finiasse, member of the Nhamtiquiti community, Mozambique.

We look forward to sharing the impact and new stories from Mozambique, stories such as these. Please stay tuned and stay in touch!

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Missed our Big Give campaign? You can still give a dam! Click here to make a donation and support vulnerable dryland communities to access clean water for life with sand dams.