Goal 6 - Clean water and sanitation · Kiribati · MFAT · Pacific · Team Updates · Water Sanitation and Hygiene · Mar 17, 2023

Meet ChildFund Kiribati's programme director David Kakiakia

Helping his community to access safe drinking water, better nutrition, and training opportunities is what motivates David Kakiakia in his role as ChildFund Kiribati's programmes director. The father of two's passion for seeing young people thrive stems back to his teenage years when he volunteered as the president on the Kiribati Institute of Technology student association.

David started working for ChildFund in 2017 when the ChildFund Kiribati team was established. He has progressed from programme coordinator and works across all of ChildFund Kiribati's projects including the youth learning programme, positive parenting, community water and sanitation awareness outreach and more recently, the distribution of solar water distillation units and solar water purifiers.

People living in Kiribati face many struggles in their daily lives caused by rising sea levels, low ground water and limited public water supply. Very sadly, Kiribati has the highest infant mortality rate in the Pacific, largely due to its unsafe drinking water from contamination and that's why projects to improve access to safe drinking water are a focus for the ChildFund Kiribati team.

Read more about ChildFund's work in Kiribati here.

Read David's interview with Radio New Zealand on World Water Day here