LIONESS WEEKENDER COVER STORY
Water Access Rwanda, bringing affordable water solutions to the people of East Africa.
Christelle Kwizera is a Mechanical Engineer and the founder of Water Access Rwanda. She is an award-winning leader and social entrepreneur with extensive experience in water projects and environmental activism. She has been globally recognised for her work and leadership in addressing the urgent need for clean and affordable water access for East Africa’s citizens. Christelle was awarded the 3rd Africa Businesses Heroes award by Jack Ma, recognized as Foundation Chanel's 2019 Woman Entrepreneur of the year, and appears in Vital Voices 100 Women Using their Power to Empower Book alongside Hilary Clinton, Late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Christine Lagarde, and other leading global women figures.
“The company is primarily focused on the bottom of the pyramid’s need for affordable and safe water and deploys models of access that provide clean water in a convenient manner.”
“WARwanda was started out of the desire to eliminate water scarcity in Rwanda whilst at the same time providing young people with employment.” — Christelle Kwizera
LoA had the pleasure of meeting and chatting to Christelle recently to find out more about what drives her passion and vision for water access in Africa, and her mission to change lives.
What does your company do?
Water Access Rwanda is a social enterprise that offers simple, durable and affordable water solutions to Rwanda and in the East Africa region in a bid to address the water crisis, while also creating employment for youth. The company is primarily focused on the bottom of the pyramid’s need for affordable and safe water and deploys models of access that provide clean water in a convenient manner.
All living beings are water dependent and over 72% of productive sectors require water, there is no one-fit-all solution when it comes to providing clean water. We seek to be a solution for different segments of the market from agriculture, education to households and everything in between. The solutions offered are bundled through four different offerings each targeted to a different customer segment. Each of the solutions is complemented with our internal capacity to conduct geophysical surveys, drill boreholes and to design and install water systems.
We bundle our services in the following 4 categories:
1. INUMA™
INUMA creates a borehole-fed micro-grid piped safe water network where purified safe water is available at public points and piped into households for private access. All water is purified through a treatment process, pumped using solar and AC and sold via pre-paid water meters activated through a token for only RWF 1 per litre (USD 0.001/litre). INUMA™ points can be made from rehabilitated existing handpumps and create jobs locally in the community.
2. UHIRA - IJABO
Targeted at farmers and off-grid businesses, hire includes a borehole, a solar pump, a pipeline, elevated storage system and an optional cattle trough or tap system from the tanks. This system is offered to groups of farmers who pay per use under the IJABO model or on a 0% credit to farmers with 25% down-payment, followed by equal monthly payments for 12 months.
3. Amazi.rw
In a bid to increase rain-water harvesting and ensure all taps in urban households provide safe water, Amazi provides first flush diverter systems and point of entry and point of use filtration systems. With this solution, households, schools, camps, clinics can save on their water bill in the rain season while reducing the amount of run-off water that would otherwise cause flooding. The systems come with a one-year warranty. Filters include in-line filters, table-top, portable and Aqua tabs Chlorinators.
4. VOMA
The full company’s technical capacities can be re-arranged and bundled up to achieve other project objectives for custom-designed projects ran by NGOs, Carbon Credit Project Developers, government, CSR partnerships, etc. With VOMA projects, we also offer WASH trainings, baseline surveying and M&E aspects through smart surveying tools. For example, under Voma Projects, over 54 public water points are maintained with monthly preventive care provided.
What inspired you to start your company?
WARwanda was started out of the desire to eliminate water scarcity in Rwanda whilst at the same time providing young people with employment. This desire was born after witnessing how horribly rural and urban households were affected with economic water scarcity (the lack of CLEAN Water) and just how many people were affected in sub-Saharan Africa (over 400 million). Water was abundant but, in our case, it was a killer due to the contaminants it contained. I sought to create easily scalable and sustainable solutions that can make substantial progress in the sector.
Why should anyone use your service or product?
Water Access Rwanda designs for all budgets and goes the extra mile to develop financing models that can unlock access for even the poorest. Our products are focused on provided affordable and reliable access to water through simple methods that deliver. This is particularly great for clients as the company is the one that takes on the burden of the outcome (finding water) instead of charging for services/products supplied only.
Tell us a little about your team
Water Access Rwanda is composed of very dedicated team of 61 young professionals with an average age of 30 years old and with 48% female. No surprise as Christelle Kwizera founded the company when she was still 20 years old. Don't let the age fool you though, as the team is highly experienced at their trade and extremely passionate and ambitious to see impact happen through their contribution.
The company is supported by a great Board of Directors and partners with reputable organization and local government to advance its mission.
Share a little about your entrepreneurial journey. And do you come from an entrepreneurial background?
I've seen my parents start a number of business ventures. However, my own entrepreneurial journey started when as a rebellious 13 year old in 8th grade (S2), I started making money and lending to my friends with a profit. It is embarrassing to say now, but most of my notes were taken by friends who owed me money. As I grew up, my love of competition led me to try out in a few Business Plan competitions. However, by the age of 17, I loved the idea of becoming a social worker and positively impacting people's lives. Becoming a social entrepreneur was a way for me to combine my advocacy skills, desire to help, and my talent with money management and engineering, all of these for the good of individuals and communities.
What are your future plans and aspirations for your company?
We need to quickly expand and reach the current water-scarce with reliable and affordable water. We see our solution work for the current 67,000 beneficiaries and we know the rest of the 400 million who currently don't have reliable water can benefit from the same. Our big ambition is to be deployed in 12 countries by 2030 through our INUMA(TM) mini-grids offering and to cover East Africa with our other agricultural and rainwater harvesting solutions. This will see us make a noticeable contribution to enabling the human right of access to water, improve the status of rural women and increasing income of farmers across Sub-Saharan Africa.
What gives you the most satisfaction being an entrepreneur?
Seeing our vision of providing water and creating employment happen before my eyes, with a growing team of staff I have inspired and who have taken ownership of our mission.
What's the biggest piece of advice you can give to other women looking to start-up?
As women we need to recognize the imposter syndrome as the real impostor in our stories. My advice for all ladies starting up is to go for it and accept with grace and humility that failure and mistakes are just one part of a journey filled with even more great decisions and successes. Know your facts and data and push the impostor thoughts that reduce our self-esteem out.
Contact or follow Water Access Rwanda
WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | YOUTUBE | EMAIL info@warwanda.com
Why LoA loves it…
Meeting Christelle is always inspirational as she is such a passion and impact-driven entrepreneur, working tirelessly to make a difference in the lives of others. She has a big vision for Water Access Rwanda and understands the power of delivering solutions in order to get the support of communities and partners to scale those solutions. This is one social enterprise that is destined for even greater impact in Africa over the coming years, and her business model is one that should inspire so many other young social entrepreneurs of the future. — Melanie Hawken, founder & ceo of Lionesses of Africa
