About Ethiopia Core Infrastructure

We began our work in Ethiopia in January 2016 with the establishment of an international NGO, Restore Hope Ethiopia. Restore Hope Ethiopia employs a holistic program to impact communities through water development and gospel transformation.

Our water and sanitation/hygiene (WASH) program is based in Ethiopia’s Bacho Oromo region. This region is home to approximately 400,000 individuals who experience significant health concerns due to limited clean water and sanitation. 80% of our target population has no access to clean water. Contaminated drinking water is the number one cause of intestinal illnesses; one child worldwide dies every minute from intestinal-related diseases. We provide pure drinking water to the Bacho Oromo people by drilling clean water wells and distributing household water filtration systems; we also lead sanitation and hygiene initiatives in our rural villages. As of Fall 2023, Restore Hope Ethiopia has completed 45 water well projects and has distributed 451 household water filtration systems in rural contexts. These water solutions provide daily clean water access to 19,900 people. In addition, we have supplied 408 women and 82 mothers with menstrual and baby hygiene packets.

Our hope is to meet physical needs through clean water while introducing our people to eternal hope through the Living Water. The WASH projects represent a vital strategy to open opportunities for local workers to enter rural villages with the gospel. The Bacho Oromo are an unreached people group, and less than 1% of the population is Evangelical Christian. We desire to see a church planting movement among the Bacho Oromo people where all people have the opportunity to hear, understand, and respond to the gospel, gather into churches, and mature as followers of Christ.