When Sivan Yaari was unable to help a starving Ugandan woman keep her baby alive, she knew she had to do whatever she could to make running water available across Africa. She’s on her way to making this a reality. Yaari, this year’s Bertie Lubner Humanitarian Award winner (in honour of Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris) at the Absa Jewish Achiever Awards, clearly remembers the woman holding her baby and begging for help back in 2017. But by the time she had returned to help her, the baby had died. “I felt so helpless, but it was the moment I realised just how important it was for me to do this work as fast as possible,” she says. To date, Yaari and her company, Innovation: Africa, have brought power and running water to five million people in 1 200 villages across Africa. In South Africa alone, in just six years, she has given more than 700 000 people access to clean water in 184 villages. And by the end of this year, she will have helped more than one million South Africans. “There are still 400 million people in Africa who need clean water, and it is my mission to get that to them,” Yaari says. Yaari spent her early childhood in Rishon LeZion in Israel, but she’s proud of the fact that she has African heritage, with her father from Algeria and her mother from Tunisia. Her father lost his job and couldn’t find alternative work so her mother was the sole breadwinner, selling chocolates. “When I was almost at Batmitzvah age, my family moved to Nice in France to live with my aunt in the hope they would find work there. They were uneducated, they hadn’t even gone to high school.” In Nice, they survived by making and selling pizzas in a market, with Yaari doing her bit to help. “We were considered poor, but I now understand what poor is. I had shoes, running water, and electricity, and I never went hungry. What I have seen in Africa is so humbling,” she says. At 18, she returned to Israel to do her national service, and worked on a kibbutz. At 20, she interviewed for a job with United States (US) clothing company Jordache. “I almost didn’t get the job because my English wasn’t good enough. As I was leaving the interview, I said, ‘But I speak French’, and that led to me being sent to its factory in Madagascar,” Yaari says. “It’s all about luck.” It was in various villages across Africa that she saw how desperate people were for clean water and energy. Yaari felt the need to do something about it, and Jordache sponsored her to do a scholarship at Columbia University in the US to study energy. Seeing that Israel uses solar power, she believed she could use that technology on her African quest. “I first took two solar panels to a medical centre in Tanzania, and they were enough to supply energy to power 12 lightbulbs and a refrigerator for vaccines. That was how I started in 2008,” she says. “I have gone from one village to the next, learning more about what’s needed all the time. “I’ve learnt the real meaning of poverty. No water means no food. It also means being sick because of using dirty water. And it means no education because you spend all day walking to find water.” She also realised that she didn’t have to invent anything because the sun provides energy in Africa and there’s water underground. “We simply need to drill down 100m to 200m, and 98% of the time, we find clean water. Then, all you need to pump the water to taps is energy, which can be supplied by solar panels. It doesn’t even cost that much,” Yaari says. In most African villages, it costs an average of R1 million to create a sustainable and 24-hour monitored water system, she says. With much bigger villages, like many in South Africa, it costs about R1.5 million because they need more taps and pipes. “This includes the remote monitoring system from Israel, and training and employing 10 people in the village to ensure the upkeep of the system. They work with the contractor for four months and learn everything to do with the solar water pumping system. So when we leave, if they need to change a tap or stem a leak, they can fix it, making every system we’ve installed 100% sustainable.” Yaari didn’t believe she was needed in South Africa. However, on her first visit here in 2018 – to a group of women at King David school – she got a call on her way to the airport out of the country from Stephen Koseff, then chief executive of Investec Bank. He told her that his wife, Sheryl, had heard her speak, and pleaded with her not to leave South Africa immediately, but to meet him. “I didn’t see the point, but I agreed. I thought if there was electricity, there was no reason not to have water. But when I went to Bushbuckridge and Vembe, I saw the grid was there, but women walked kilometres to get water and often they could find only dirty water,” she says. “I was shocked at hearing the horror stories of what happens to some women on their way. I knew I had to help. Investec offered to give us money for the first 10 villages. “We use Israeli technology and work with local communities and contractors,” she says. All the South African sponsors are from Jewish-led organisations. “The South African Jewish community has such a big heart. It really cares for its members, the country, and its people. I couldn’t do what I have done here without its help,” she said. “I come to South Africa two or three times a year and see how the community really cares and wants to create change. I feel like I’m helping it to do the good it wants to do. It’s heartwarming.” Yaari says she has no doubt that though there are still four million people in South Africa who don’t have access to clean water, it’s feasible that with the help of the Jewish community, this won’t be the case in a few years’ time. “It’s my vision to ensure that the whole of Africa has access to clean water, and we’re working on it one village at a time. Because of the simplicity of the technology and how efficient we’re becoming, we have the best engineers in the world, the best team, and we make water systems to last.” Yaari speaks of the joy she feels whenever people first open a tap in a village. “You see the faces of the women, and you can see they recognise they no longer need to be fearful and that their lives will be forever changed by this moment. “What I love most about what we do is the fact that the impact is immediate, from not ever having running water to never again having to be without it. From drinking contaminated water to suddenly breaking the cycle of poverty. It’s a historical moment. From then on, their lives can only get better.” Yaari says they can install this technology in between 30 to 35 villages a year. “What amazes me in South Africa is that when I go back to those villages six months later, I see the businesses that have been set up by the women there, who are now free to be a part of the economy. They make bricks, open shops, make and sell food, create vegetable gardens, and become financially independent. It’s so inspiring!” Yaari says she was inspired by Golda Meir, who helped found the state of Israel and served as its fourth prime minister. “Israel was just nine years old when Golda went to Ghana’s Independence Day and saw the poverty there and decided to send Israeli experts to share their expertise and help them and other African nations,” says Yaari. “This is what Israel is about – helping others and sharing what we know. I feel we’re continuing Golda’s legacy and doing what we as Israelis are supposed to do. This is how we fulfil our destiny.” However, she emphasises the urgency of her work, and says she wants to work faster. She goes back to the moment she met that one woman in Karamoja in Uganda. “I remember arriving there at this place that the homeless Jews of Europe were offered, and was shocked. People were dying of thirst,” she says. Yaari spent three months there after the woman’s baby died. “At the time, my three babies were at home, but I couldn’t leave because those villages had no water anywhere nearby, and they were literally dying. Even today, there are people dying from drought just because they have no energy to pump water. So, we need to do it for them.” The Bertie Lubner Humanitarian Award winner 8 in honour of Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris Sivan Yaari Giving water to Africa, one village at a time
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