Celebrating 20 Years of Saving Rain
Sakila Primary School rainwater harvesting system built in 2025
This is what 20 years of saving rain looks like.....
note from the executive director
I set out to write a celebratory 20th-anniversary note, but given the recent unrest in Tanzania, that just did not feel right. Instead of looking back at dates and milestones, I want to express my deepest gratitude to the donors who fund our work, our corporate partners who allow us to dream, and our board, who see us through. What transpired in Tanzania gave us a new perspective. The rainwater tanks you sponsored made it possible for families to stay out of the line of fire—literally—because they had what they needed to stay home.
In the last few years, the need for safety has never been clearer. And the reality of how few of us have it has never been more troubling. From the pandemic to the political conflict in Tanzania, we’ve been reminded how little we control. Without water, no family is truly secure, and a house cannot be a home. However, meeting basic needs and sharing what we have with the people we choose
gives us the courage to weather any storm. Over the last 20 years, we have seen how rainwater tanks fortify homes and become the mortar of a family’s well-being. Add a greenhouse, and a family can now steward their own sanctuary and experience a freedom that only safety can provide. Your continuous support has made this possible.
The story that follows tells the history of Save the Rain from our team’s perspective in Tanzania. Though your name may not appear on these pages, if you have contributed—through gifts, time, partnership, or simply carrying our story forward— you are written into every victory. All we have accomplished begins with you.
The perspective Save the Rain has gained over 20 years isn’t easily communicated by numbers. We measure our work more fluidly—through generations of change, thousands of stories of
overcoming, the resiliency of our teams, the commitment of our donors, partners, and board, and the trust we place in the families we serve to safeguard and divvy up their good fortune. We share our results from deep within the well of the work, revering everyone in the equation of our success.
Save the Rain is a tapestry of miraculous moments woven together into a mission. It is a bridge—one where very different lives collide together for a common purpose: to serve, to right wrongs, to level the field. Above all, we consistently use water to deliver safety, respect, and love.
We are so very grateful to be looking to the next 20 years, and even more thankful that you have chosen to be on this journey with us.
With immense gratitude, Kelly Coleman
Save the Rain Executive Director
Patandi Primary School was our first large-scale school system, built in 2009, and still provides water to hundreds of students every day.
Two Decades, One Promise: Save the Rain
As we look back over 20 years of saving the rain, we see abundance multiplying. It can’t be described by a line on a graph, though; it’s not linear… in fact, there are no straight lines at all. Instead, we see storylines. Lifelines. Laughter lines. The growth we see is human — personal. An expansion of the heart; a widening of its capacity to love.
First, there was Joseph with his desire to nourish his family, honor nature, and show his community what becomes possible when we steward earth’s resources. He manifested it in an organic farm, cows, goats, and even aquaculture. But this inherent impulse toward flourishing had come up against a limit.
While he and his wife tended the farm, fetching enough water to sustain home, herds, and harvest fell to their daughter Violeth. Since the age of five, she’d been lugging buckets from the nearby river, and Joseph knew there must be a way to feed his loved ones without sacrificing his daughter. Too many families in his community faced the same conundrum:
the nonnegotiable need for water, and the time, energy, safety, and well-being that it demanded.
It was at this juncture that we met. We co-created a solution, rooted in context and local knowledge, made by local materials. We built our first-ever rainwater harvesting system on Joseph’s home, and Violeth no longer had to walk for water. Her younger siblings, Kelvin and Rose, would never know the burden of a bucket at all.
Beholding this simple miracle and the lifetimes of change it held, Joseph decreed ‘What you have given to us, we will give to everyone - and God will bless you.’ This was a moment that helped define Save the Rain, and with this mandate, our work began.
While we figured out how to fundraise, Joseph carried out the legwork. He walked everywhere, carrying building materials on his back and charting the path forward with his footsteps. When we got him a bicycle, he would balance sacks of cement, tools, and team
members on his handlebars. The life-force that animated him flowed into everything, and his unwavering faith inspired everyone he met.
Aiming high, we set our ambitions on a 230,000-liter tank at Nambala Primary School, where Joseph’s children studied. As we dug the foundations, we unearthed an enormous boulder: a monolith of immovable proportions. Stalled by stone, we despaired — but the team did not. They took turns smashing it to rubble with their raw strength and sheer force of will. It was a profound lesson in human capacity. That day, we learned that there is no such thing as an obstacle — because water always finds a way.
Joseph himself moved like water: to bridge the gap between his Swahili and our English, we drew pictures that illustrated his meaning; when we were afar, he took a translator to an internet café and shared trials and triumphs via painstakingly typed emails. Though he has only a primary school education, Joseph is a university unto himself: when his heart is moved, there is nothing he cannot do.
Violeth, freed from fetching water, became his apprentice. As she learned English, she took on the role of his translator, and her school holidays were an education in saving the rain. Her growth dovetailed with the organization’s, and she was at his side when Joseph graduated from a bicycle to a motorbike; from managing a team to leading a workforce. Our efforts multiplied, and change rippled across communities.
Violeth finished school and set her sights on becoming a doctor: she wanted to help people. She missed the entry requirement by a single point. She looks back now and sees the fingerprints of destiny. She was already her father’s right-hand woman; all that remained was to accept her role formally — and, as she tells it, she helps so many more than she would as a doctor.
After college, Kelvin joined his father and sister. When he married Cleo, it emerged that his heart had guided the perfect match. Training as a nurse took her along the trajectory that Violeth had thought she wanted - but water brought them both to the
How it started
How it’s going
same place. The women work together, manifesting health, care, and healing on a far greater scale than medicine alone could encompass.
Twenty years in, Joseph is still the Director of Save the Rain. Violeth, Kelvin, and Cleo manage the many facets of our operations, bringing about generational transformation every single day. We could measure their work by the number of tanks we’ve built. We could tally it in billions of liters, or break down our beneficiaries into statistics. We could define our worth by reducing human lives and stories to numbers and figures.
But our definition of growth is a ripple, a series of concentric circles. It is an ever-increasing number of people opening their arms into an embrace. At the center, Joseph and his family — the first recipients, and the beating heart of Save the Rain. Their trajectory has, and always will be, our own.
Violeth has two sons; Kelvin and Cleo have a baby boy too. Watching each first wobbly step, we are reminded of our own early days of learning to save the rain. Growth is discovery, stumbling, and being guided by a helping hand. Growth is made possible by love — and water is the medium through which
we deliver it. Twenty years have taught us that when we put ourselves in the service of this love, we are abundantly provided for. When we make water possible, the rest flows as a natural consequence.
Joseph’s pronouncement — that what we gave to him we will give to everyone, and God will bless us — appears to have come true. When you believe, as Joseph does, that you’re doing God’s work, the path always unfolds before you.
We don’t pretend to know what shape the next 20 years will take — but we have immeasurable faith in the love that will abound. Thank you, for your faith in us allows this journey to continue.
Kelvin, Joseph, Violeth
IMPACT 2025
WATER AT HOME + SCHOOL
This year we built 804 residential tanks and six new school tank projects. We moved water closer to kitchens and classrooms, saving women and children countless hours of searching.
FOOD SECURITY
From seedlings to school lunches, we strengthened food security: 1,500 people received vegetable starts, 800 residential greenhouses were built, 10 primary schools received emergency food relief and 2,096 new trees will shade, feed and protect soil for years.
EDUCATION
We awarded 30 scholarships this year and expanded access to safe water at schools, opening doors to health, learning, and opportunity.
ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT
Women-led cooperatives are engines of change. We partnered with seven women’s co-ops and generated 400+ local jobs.
What’s Ahead in 2026
Expanding our Map
Hurricane Melissa’s havoc on Jamaica opened a series of synergies that invited Save the Rain to expand our clean water and food security programs to the island.
We are going on our third year of working with Kiwi farmers supporting innovative food projects in New Zealand for families struggling with food security.
We’re exploring program expansion in Guatemala as well, partnering with Rotary and Universities to see the work expand.
In all areas, we are listening first, partnering locally, and assessing where rainwater harvesting and women-led solutions can root and scale.
Training Center
We’re creating a practical Training Center led by our Tanzania team. It will be an immersive hub where visiting crews can learn hands-on, then return home ready to replicate systems with local materials and labor.
A New Rotary Grant
A dedicated Rotary grant will support the growth of our Women’s Water Initiatives, accelerating building new tanks, training, and leadership opportunities for women builders.
Growing the Farm
We’ll expand the farm by another 20 acres to strengthen food security and training: more seedlings, more plots, more produce.
Thanks to our corporate sponsors 100% of public donations directly fund our projects.
Help bring clean water home in 2026. Year-end giving means year-round water for families.
As we round out another year, we’re looking forward to the fresh start and new promise of 2026. Now is the time for planting in Tanzania: we commit our hopes and dreams to the earth, and ask the rain bring them to life. The greatest hope we hold is to extend our ripple of transformation to anyone living the injustice of water scarcity.
For this, we need you. Every dollar is a drop that allows us to make it rain where rain is needed most. Please consider donating.
$15 provides a child with lifelong access to clean drinking water.
$150 provides a family with a residential greenhouse that is full of organic crops that harvest multiple times each week.
$500 provides a residential rainwater harvesting system , freeing a family from the daily search for water.
From kitenge totes to tablet cases and zipper pouches, each piece is handmade by women artisans, and every purchase helps bring clean water home.
Women & Water Book
For our 20th anniversary, we wrote a book celebrating the women of Save the Rain. Buy a copy to support the work.
*Left: The women of Lositeti pose for portraits outside the primary school, April 2025.
