I am Habteab A. Bantora, founder and project manager of an award-winning social enterprise called Vital Water Purifier. I’m also a d-prize fellow. I am an experienced research assistant from Hawassa University. As someone who’s frequently involved in research projects, I picked up a lot of experience learning the everyday problems of rural communities including their struggles with lack of water. I’ve had the vision of starting this social enterprise for several years and my journey began by donating water filters I collected from my relatives to rural families.
We primarily distribute proven water filter interventions to village homes in rural Ethiopia.
As a young founder of a promising social enterprise, I do more than my job description. I initiate meetings with partners and government stakeholders. I help the team with planning and executing proposed plans to ensure that we meet our deadlines. I write project proposals and applications for grants. I go out to the fields with the team and distribute water filters. I communicate my ideas with representatives of potential partner organizations to bring in new resources to our social enterprise. As an aspiring young leader, I commit full-time to our social venture. Because of my dedicated hard work, last year, our social enterprise won the D-prize. It was a great journey to win that for the team. My vision is to grow this venture into a large social enterprise and unlock water access for more than 12 million people in Ethiopia and beyond in the next ten years.
Visit http://www.vitalwaterpurifier.com to learn more.
You also check out our profile on the d-prize website: https://d-prize.org/winners/profiles/2022/vital-water-purifier