Bread & Water for Africa^® began in 1986 as a project of Christian Relief Services Charities to promote positive change in Africa by supporting grassroots initiatives for self-sufficiency, health and education.

Bread and Water for Africa®, a Virginian-incorporated charity headquartered in Fairfax County, celebrated its tenth anniversary as an international nongovernmental organization on December 30th, 2007.

The charity is still an affiliate of CRSC and shares office space and administrative support in order to spend more of its financial resources on the programs in Africa.

We receive funding from wonderfully supportive and caring individuals, family and community foundations, corporations, Christian Relief Services, generous Federal employees through the Combined Federal Campaign, generous state employees through state employee campaigns, wills and bequests, and employer matching contributions.

During the ten year history of the organization, over $4,000,000.00 in grant funding has been provided to grassroots, African, organizations in Burundi,  Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Guinea, Kenya, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Grant funding has been provided with an emphasis on supporting projects which provide education (construction of schools, vocational training centers, literacy and provision for teachers and supplies), health (construction of clinics, mobile clinics, and a hospital, provisions for doctors, nurses and supplies, HIV/AIDS education and outreach), clean water (the construction of water pipelines, water wells, pit latrines, protection of local water sources and education about the importance of clean water), agriculturual self-sufficiency (livestock sharing, agricultural skills training, the provision of supplies and women's cooperative gardening), orphan care (provision for education, food, medical expenses and infrastructure), women's micro-credit and micro-enterprise programs.

Major accomplishments include:

• The construction of a water pipeline serving over 30,000 residents in rural districts of Uganda
• Construction and operation of nine Maternal Health and Under Five clinics in rural Sierra Leone
• The construction of nine clean water wells for communities in Kenya, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Zambia and Mozambique
• The construction and operation of three orphan care programs in Kenya, Mozambique and Zambia
• The construction of six primary schools in Kenya, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Zambia and Zimbabwe
• The creation and support of women's literacy programs in Ethiopia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe
• The creation and support of agriculture self-sufficiency programs cultivating over 1,000 acres of land total in Ethiopia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Uganda
• The creation of a computer training center in rural Ethiopia
• The construction of the Kip Keino School, Eldoret, Kenya