The Adventure Project is partnering with Yvette Ishimwe, founder of Iriba Water Group. Her Rwandan social enterprise brings affordable, purified drinking water to schools and communities through Tap & Drink Water ATMs, creating local jobs at every step. Here is how the partnership came to be, and how you made it possible.
Water changes everything.
When children have clean water at school, they can focus on class instead of worrying about where their next drink will come from. Families stay healthier. Communities become stronger. And when clean water is close to home, women and girls spend less time collecting it and more time in school, at work, or building their futures.
Yet for many communities across Rwanda, reliable access to safe drinking water is still a daily challenge. Even when water is available, it isn't always purified, affordable, or close enough to where families and students need it most.
Yvette saw that challenge firsthand in Kigali.
Through Iriba Water Group, Yvette has built an innovative social enterprise that brings affordable, purified drinking water directly into communities and schools through Tap & Drink Water ATMs.
But what impressed me wasn't just the technology.
It was the business model.
Every Water ATM creates opportunity. Local technicians install and maintain the systems. Women community operators manage them. Young people build careers while delivering an essential service to their neighbors. Schools gain reliable access to clean water. Families gain peace of mind.
It's exactly the kind of solution we look for—one that creates jobs while solving a critical need.
Over the past year, you've heard us talk about an ambitious goal: creating 10,000 jobs by 2030.
We'll only reach that goal by finding entrepreneurs like Yvette.
Not just entrepreneurs with good ideas.
Entrepreneurs with proven businesses.
Leaders who have already demonstrated that their solutions work and are ready to grow.
That search takes time.
We spend a lot of time getting to know entrepreneurs before we ever become partners. We visit their communities. We meet their teams. We ask difficult questions. We review their operations, leadership, financial sustainability, and long-term vision.
Those are the questions we ask every time.
Yvette answered every one of them.
Because of our community of supporters who gave to our 15th Anniversary campaign, we were able to do the due diligence and research needed to find and vet Yvette, ensuring her leadership, innovation, commitment to her community, and vision for the future through Iriba Water Group represent exactly the kind of entrepreneur who can help shape the next chapter of The Adventure Project.
Last Giving Tuesday and throughout the holiday season, many of you chose to invest in something that isn't always visible.
You invested in our ability to find the next extraordinary entrepreneur.
Because of your generosity, Michael and I were able to travel to Rwanda, spend meaningful time with Yvette and her team, visit the communities they serve, walk through neighborhoods in Kigali, meeting water operators and customers, as well as multiple schools where students now have clean drinking water. This visit helps to complete the rigorous due diligence that every new partnership deserves.
Those visits confirmed what we had hoped.
Yvette isn't just building water infrastructure.
She's building opportunity.
She's creating jobs.
She's proving that the people closest to a problem are often the ones best equipped to solve it.
Thank you for making that possible.
Yvette is the latest new entrepreneur to join The Adventure Project, and this Labor Day, you'll hear more about how you can help her bring clean water to more communities across Rwanda.
But Yvette is just the beginning.
Vision 2030 is about finding and backing more local entrepreneurs with bold ideas—leaders creating jobs while solving challenges in clean water, healthcare, food security, and climate resilience. By investing in their businesses, we can help them scale solutions that create opportunity and lasting change for thousands of families.
Yvette is the first step in that journey.
Thank you for believing, alongside us, that the world's biggest challenges are best solved by the people who know them best.
Here's to the next chapter, and to you for making it all possible.
-Becky
A water ATM is an automated dispensing station that provides purified drinking water at an affordable price. Iriba Water Group's Tap & Drink Water ATMs are installed in schools and community locations across Rwanda, where they are managed by trained local operators.
Iriba Water Group is a Rwandan social enterprise founded by Yvette Ishimwe. The company brings safe, affordable drinking water to schools and communities through its network of Tap & Drink Water ATMs, creating local jobs at every step.
We look for local entrepreneurs with proven businesses, not just promising ideas. Before partnering, we spend time reviewing a company's operations, leadership, financial sustainability, and ability to create dignified jobs at scale.
Vision 2030 is The Adventure Project's goal to create 10,000 jobs by 2030 by investing in local entrepreneurs working in water, health, and food security.
You can give monthly to help us invest in entrepreneurs like Yvette, share this story with a friend, or sign up for our newsletter to follow Iriba's progress.
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