Come work with us
Do you have a background and experience in admin/accountancy/HR, speak fluently English and French, have EU working rights, and are excited about joining a youthful organization making great impact in the water sector? Then this opportunity may be for you! At YWS we are in a growth phase with significant potential for expanding our activities in the years to come. Having a team of one Director General and 3 programme managers with sometimes additional trainees, the team has until now managed by itself all admin tasks mostly setting up ad hoc procedures and practices which are time consuming and difficult to transfer. Now, we are...
First Young Water Fellowship’s edition in Asia!
We are proud to announce the launch of our first edition of the Young Water Fellowship in Asia! Indeed, this year we are implementing the Young Water Fellowship in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, only 59% of the population is using safely managed water services and worse, only 39% of it has access to safely managed sanitation services. Inequalities between the richest and poorest are particularly high as highlighted by the estimated ratio for overall WASH services, which was 4:9 in 2019 (JMP 2020). Women hygiene is also an important issue as there are still 30% of female students that miss school each month due to the...
e-Hackathon en agua y saneamiento #LAC 2022
Cewas, Young Water Solutions, el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID) y el Fondo de Cooperación para Agua y Saneamiento (FCAS) invitan a jóvenes innovadores latinoamericanos/as a participar del e-Hackathon 2022 para generar emprendimientos que contribuyan a la solución de problemas de agua y saneamiento en asentamientos informales de América Latina y el Caribe. El evento de 2 días de duración reunirá a equipos de jóvenes para diseñar emprendimientos con alto impacto social, a la vez de compartir ideas y experiencias con otros jóvenes latinoamericanos. Los grupos ganadores recibirán como premio su participación en la edición 2022 del Programa de incubación Young Water Fellowship Latinoamérica, que incluye...
YWF Latinoamérica edición 2022
Young Water Solutions anuncia la apertura del proceso de aplicación para participar del programa Young Water Fellowship Latinoamérica 2022. Para su segunda edición en Latinoamérica, YWS ofrecerá a 10 emprendedores (“Young Water Fellows”) y sus equipos la posibilidad de participar en el programa beneficiando de 1 año de apoyo incluyendo capacitación sobre negocios, agua y saneamiento; coaching y mentoreo; oportunidades de networking para incrementar exponencialmente sus redes de apoyo en el sector del agua y saneamiento, así como capital semilla para los primeros pasos de la implementación de sus emprendimientos sociales. El programa Young Water Fellowship ofrece a jóvenes (18 a 30 años) un año de apoyo...
YWF Latin America 2021 training
From 13th March to 29th May 2021, 12 start-ups took part in the first 7 virtual sessions of the of the Young Water Fellowship 2021 Latin America edition training. The training was delivered online in partnership with cewas and Impact Hub CDMX and was attended by more than 40 young entrepreneurs from all corners of Latin America. During the training, they learned how to analyze demand for their solutions, evaluate the market and their competitors, identify potential customer segments, and shape their value proposition and income generation model. Through the creation of a customer journey map, part of the business canvas, empathy maps and interviews,...
First WASH entrepreneurship ecosystem meeting in Ivory Coast
On April 16th, Young Water Solutions, in partnership with Incub’Ivoir, organised the first meeting for stakeholders from the WASH entrepreneurship ecosystem in Abidjan. The event brought together 30 actors from the sectors of water & sanitation and entrepreneurship. The meeting was the first of its kind, a space to focus on what it means to be a WASH entrepreneur in Ivory Coast and to build up a picture of the ecosystem surrounding start-ups in water and sanitation. Following a short scene-setting presentation from Eau et Assainissement pour l’Afrique (EAA), participants had the opportunity to exchange opinions about the opportunities for entrepreneurs in the WASH sector...
The Young Water Fellowship Acceleration programme
On 7th April 2021, Young Water Solutions kick-started the first edition of the Young Water Fellowship Acceleration Programme, in partnership with cewas. The programme provides further support for high-potential start-ups from former editions of the YWF and aims at equipping them with skills and know-how to scale their social businesses. The programme is based on a collaborative approach with partners and investors who can support the start-ups whilst increasing the impact of their investment portfolio at the same time. The start-ups will benefit from a wide range of activities, including in-depth enterprise analysis, training on financing and business strategies and final investment matchmaking with partners...
YWF Senegal 2020 training in Saly and Dakar
From 2nd to 15th November 2020, fourteen dynamic young entrepreneurs participated in the training component of the Young Water Fellowship Sénégal. The two-week training on social entrepreneurship in the WASH sector took place in Saly and Dakar and was delivered in partnership with cewas and Concree, and with the participation of stakeholders such as AJPEAS. During the training, the young entrepreneurs had the opportunity to develop their innovative business ideas through activities such as drawing up their business model canvas and sketching out their operational diagram. Additionally, during an internal soirée de pitch, they got a feeling of what it’s like to pitch to an audience and received...
Young Water Solutions newest member of the SWEP
Thanks to the support of the Waterloo Foundation, Young Water Solutions has joined the Sanitation and Water Entrepreneurship Pact (SWEP) with the aim of supporting water and sanitation entrepreneurs more effectively, building an ecosystem around WaSH entrepreneurship and channelling funds where they are most needed. What is the SWEP and why was it created? In the past decade, the universe of players involved in delivering WaSH services has become larger and more diverse, with public, private and third sector entities getting increasingly involved. Many different organisations and programmes which support water and sanitation entrepreneurship have also emerged. The challenge – and the financing gap – remains huge, though, both locally and globally. This begs the question:...
Three Young Water Fellows funded to help fight COVID-19
Thanks to generous funding from the International WaterCentre Alumni Network (IWCAN), three Young Water Fellows were selected to implement projects responding to the threat of Covid-19 in their community. The Fellows selected were Everlyne Nabakka and Patricia Rhoda Nekesa from Uganda and John Tumaini from Kenya. Despite the challenging times that COVID-19 has thrown upon many enterprises, our 2019 Global Young Water Fellow Everlyne Nabakka and partner Daniel Kimbugwe turned a challenge into an opportunity. While Eve’s YWF project usually produces ecological and reusable sanitary pads, she temporarily re-purposed her workshop to produce face masks. In two months, her social enterprise EcoSanitary Uganda successfully manufactured and distributed 2,000 re-usable masks to vulnerable communities, health facilities and key local government departments whilst also contributing to improved hygiene...