Care for Africa founder said water was key for true change

Ms Butler was working as an emergency nurse at Launceston General Hospital in northern Tasmania when she first heard about the dire need for basic necessities in Saharan Africa.

In one case, a doctor was forced to work by candlelight in a hospital with no foreign aid and no water heater.

Ms Butler travelled to Tanzania after raising funds for a generator for the hospital and a shipping container of medical aid.

"I went across just to see what was happening and whether it was needed because there's always this wonder whether aid actually gets there," she said.

It was there Ms Butler saw extreme poverty and vowed to continue to help the communities.

Almost two decades later, Care for Africa now helps six rural communities across Tanzania, which has a total population of 32,000 people.

Water access remains a major issue for the region and most of the women and girls spend their entire days collecting water, so part of Care for Africa's work involves digging accessible bore wells. Each bore well can cost up to $20,000.

Despite the cost, Ms Butler said the changes brought about by clean, accessible water are life-changing.

"We put the boreholes in the schools, primarily, because that allows the girls to come to school, get an education, have water at school and come home," she said.

"When you're putting in water, you need to put in sanitation because that stops the cycle of infection.

"Once you can put in water it changes your health statistics as well because most of the people we were seeing in our health clinics had waterborne diseases - cholera, typhoid, diarrhoea - and also their nutrition was poor because they haven't got water to cook food with."

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Ms Butler said finance was the greatest challenge for Care for Africa.

"It's really hard to ask people for money when they've got their own financial battles they are facing and COVID has really upset everyone," she said.

Ms Butler said Care for Africa is based on an integrated model which is sustainable and not dependent on donors.

"For everything we do, the community contributes 20 per cent," she said.

"So if we build a school, the community will carve for the rocks that built the foundations. For the breakfast programs, the children carry the firewood and then the mothers come and cook the porridge. It's really about working together as one."