Water 4 Mercy is establishing the Israel-Kenya Don Bosco Agricultural Innovation and Technology Centre in Nairobi, Kenya.
Water 4 Mercy is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that provides a permanent solution to end the vicious cycle of poverty in Africa. Their mission is to uphold human dignity by eradicating thirst, hunger and poverty. They do this by using innovative Israeli technologies to provide clean water, agricultural technologies, and modernized educational solutions to remote villages in Africa.
Along with their partners, Israeli NGO’s innovation:Africa (iA) and CultivAid, they bring water to villages by installing solar-powered wells, continuously monitor the system remotely, implement the Israeli-developed drip irrigation systems, and encourage financial independence through farming.
Water 4 Mercy is also partnered with the Don Bosco Network of Technical Institutes (TVETs) to implement their Agricultural Innovation and Technology Centres (AiTeC) in Africa.
Nermine Khouzam Rubin, MBA, MHS founded Water 4 Mercy in 2018 with a clear purpose. “My goal is to empower all of Africa and beyond, every area that is subjected to drought-induced poverty. Working together, we can break the cycle of poverty and implement sustainable systems that will produce instant and long-term success. That is Water 4 Mercy.”
She is passionate about educating and empowering the locals. The goal is to have them “be proudly independent through the sustainable system that is being implemented, giving them the ability to fend for themselves, to succeed. The problem will be solved by their own dedication to sustain and adopt what is being set in place, and this is already being eagerly done. I want to empower each person, so that we eventually work ourselves out of a job, one that will hopefully cease to exist,” she said.
That is the purpose of the AiTeC. The centres are designed to create permanent self-sustainability throughout Africa by ‘teaching the teachers to teach’ with hands-on curriculum that incorporates the collaborative water and agricultural expertise of Israeli NGO’s Innovation:Africa and CultivAid.
Water 4 Mercy’s first AiTeC is at the Don Bosco Technical Institute in Dodoma, Tanzania where they have been training locals via the largest Catholic skills training school in the world, and now they are bringing the same opportunity to Kenya.
Israel Ambassador to Kenya, Oded Joseph helped lead the signing of the agreement establishing the Israel-Kenya Don Bosco Agricultural Innovation and Technology Centre in Nairobi.
“This initiative will present immense food potential in food sufficiency in Kenya and the region. The goodwill of the partners and the efforts of the farmers will bolster the cooperation that exists between our two nations and boost Kenya’s economic power,” said ambassador Joseph.
Nermine is working to ensure that Water 4 Mercy’s permanent solution will truly eradicate thirst, hunger, and poverty. With enough support and funding for their projects, they will prove to the world that Africa can be self-sustaining. Israel’s advanced solar, water and agricultural innovations have proven to make the desert bloom. Bringing that know-how to Africa is extremely fruitful and leads to economic prosperity.
“I will be working hard to bring in multiple organizations for the common cause of liberating Africa from poverty to instead be on the road to economic prosperity. The plan is to raise worldwide awareness to gain support and receive enough funds to scale up AITeC, so that Africa is on the road to self-sustainability within 3-5 years,” said Nermine.
What Water 4 Mercy is doing along with its partners is revolutionary and the necessary fulcrum of change for Africa’s agriculture to be built on a new and solid foundation.