Travel For Good – Newmarket Holidays' partnership with Just a Drop

Just a Drop brings sustainable safe water, sanitation and hygiene projects to communities around the world. Safe water changes everything. It improves health, education, women’s rights, leads to secure food sources, economic growth and brighter futures. It completely transforms lives, especially those of women and children.

We're incredibly excited to continue our partnership with Just a Drop and to raise a further £4K towards our ongoing latrine-building project. We have already made a real, tangible, and sustainable impact by constructing this latrine block at a local school in Nicaragua (see the photos attached).

The event:

Two teams – two rowing machines – 100 miles – another day to change lives of children in Nicaragua.

On Wednesday, 1 May, we'll participate in a fun, virtual rowing race across Lake Cocibolca to continue to raise money towards this life-changing project.

Two teams will start at each end of the lake – the first team to get to the centre WINS!

Across Nicaragua, latrine and hand-washing facilities are limited, which leads to open defecation and increases the risk of disease. In addition to this, only 6% of schools have gender-specific toilets – this prevents girls from having the privacy they need when on their periods and causes them to drop out of school.

Los Calpules School is in a remote area of Nicaragua. The school had latrines, but they were old, unclean, and dilapidated, meaning that the children were often forced to defecate outside rather than use the toilets. This created a serious hygiene and sanitation problem and meant that there were high levels of diarrhoea, and the students were forced to miss out on school due to illness.

With Just a Drop, our money has helped build two double-pit latrines (one for boys and one for girls) and one single pit latrine (for teachers). We have also installed hand-washing facilities in the school. This means that the children especially will benefit from increased health, improved performance in school and in the long term, improved economic opportunities. As with all Just a Drop’s projects, the community are involved at every stage and will own and maintain the solution.

Our continued commitment to the project with Just a Drop aims to achieve the following:

- Children will be healthier and attend school in a more hygienic environment.

- More children can access an education and have access to toilets and hand-washing facilities.

- Girls, in particular, will benefit, as they’ll be able to access adequate toilet facilities when on their periods – this will enable them to remain in school and not at risk of dropping out.

- Hygiene practices, such as hand washing, become common, leading to long-term health benefits.

- Families have more disposable income as they’re no longer spending money on expensive doctors’ bills.

- The project will prevent open defecation.

Two Newmarket Holidays' teams will compete in a virtual rowing race across Lake Cocibolca to continue to fundraise for this ambitious joint project.

Please support this amazing work – your contribution will make a difference.