Most of us don't give a second thought to the water we use to bathe, cook or drink. We turn on the faucet, and it flows.
A woman in Grapevine has made it her mission to give that basic necessity to a small village in Africa.
Her inspiration for it is "something good."
"[My father] was very passionate about the poor. He helped the poor as much as he could," said Lumble Mlambo of her late father. "He was an icon, a symbol, and someone I look up to as a humanitarian; a good father."
Mlambo's father J.B. Dondolo was committed to giving his rural village on Egusi, Zimbabwe, a hospital. When he died, Mlambo and her siblings vowed to continue his work and founded an all-volunteer charity in his name.
Mlambo's trip of more than 9,000 miles from her home in Grapevine revealed villagers needed something more than a hospital. They lacked clean water.
"They asked me for water. I said, 'What? I’m not here for water. That’s not the project we're working on. This is the hospital, and I’m here to do that,'" she recalled. "To be honest, I haven't even done much on the hospital because we got stuck on the water. It became a huge thing."'
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Mlambo and the team on the ground tackled smaller projects at the hospital first - painting, doors and fixtures replaced.
Along the way, the foundation raised funds for the water project.
And months later, the village celebrated as clean water flowed from a new system.
"It was actually a huge deal because the whole community came over for the same water," she said.
There was so much pressure on the system, the old pipes burst. The next step will be to install a separate system that gets clean water to homes.
"Without clean water, you're not healthy. Our bodies don't function. everybody needs clean water," Mlambo said.
Mlambo’s work earned her an award from the Dallas chapter of the United Nations Association - USA. It supports the United Nations’ to-do list of achieving sustainable development goals like clean water and sanitation.
Next month, the group will honor Mlambo and 10 other North Texans for their work at a ceremony in Irving.
