The Nuba Water Project: Social Entrepreneurship in Sudan

Founding and Mission

The Nuba Water Project (NWP) was co-founded by Ibrahim A. Agor and Steve Riley in the early 2000s. Born in Sudan, Ibrahim is a refugee of the civil war in the Nuba Mountains in the 1990s. He fled that violence with his family in 2000, and they resettled in Egypt. Later, he and his wife and three young daughters emigrated to the United States so that he could complete a graduate degree in electrical engineering. Steve Riley is an American citizen who spent most of his career working in the insurance industry and his free time volunteering in the refugee housing sector. Through that volunteer work, he became acquainted with Sudanese refugees in Denver, where he met Ibrahim. The combined experience these two men bring to the project fuels a shared passion for helping some of the planet's poorest people.

Based on the belief that access to clean water is a fundamental human right, the NWP's mission is to improve the quality of life for people living in the Nuba region of Sudan through the provision of sustainable sources of clean water. Staff affiliated with the Project work hard to "rely on the Nuba peoples' own spirit of independence, resourcefulness and hard work in the creation of economically sound, self-sustaining water projects." In this way, the NWP takes a very specific issue — the provision of clean water supplies — and applies it to a very specific region of the world: the Nuba Mountains in Sudan. Larger goals for the organization rest on the conviction that once a group of people has guaranteed access to clean water, they will be better able to achieve broader community development goals, including education, sanitation, public health, and infrastructure.

Fundraising and Organizational Structure

As a 501(c)(3) organization, the NWP relies entirely on fundraising and donations for its revenue. The organization's website allows visitors to donate directly, and the group holds occasional local events in Denver, Colorado, where it is based. Its largest annual fundraising event is the Walk for Sudan, in which hundreds of Denver residents pay to walk a 5K and, in the process, are educated about war, poverty, and other realities facing the Sudanese people. The majority of NWP staff work as volunteers in the United States, thereby reserving most of the organization's revenue for project use rather than administration. Local Sudanese residents are paid when the group arrives to install new infrastructure.

Design and Local Context

Building water infrastructure inherently involves elements of design. Western sanitation facilities, for example, are expected to be white, clean, and indoors. In the United States, we expect every home to have its own faucet and running water. In Sudan, however, the expectations for design and infrastructure are quite different. By working directly in local communities and employing residents to help with every phase of planning and construction, the NWP is able to incorporate local design knowledge and preferences.

Many water projects in Sudan are situated outdoors, since many residents are transient or housed in temporary shelters. Water taps are more likely to be centrally located so that surrounding households can share access. Women, who are widely recognized as the primary water-gatherers across much of Africa, may in fact benefit from the social dimension of shared water access. The daily ritual of gathering with neighbors to fetch water can provide critical community cohesion. Thus, while design is not an explicit focus of the NWP's stated mission, its approach to the challenge clearly incorporates human-centered design principles.