MOSS Foundation
The MOSS Foundation Story
Founded in 2006, MOSS Foundation was created as a vessel to manage the spending of charity earnings raised at the MOSS Jam skateboarding events. The name MOSS was developed from Melbourne Old School Skaters. How MOSS subsequently became involved in eSwatini (formerly Swaziland) and our clean water schemes is down to a mixed bag of chance connections and fate.
MOSS founding member, Robert “ Wedge” Francis, conducted his own research into worthy charities, hoping to spend the small pool of funds in the most efficient way possible. Through some family connections, Wedge was eventually put in contact with Bruce Jameson, an active philanthropist living in eSwatini. Bruce already had a wealth of experience providing assistance and critical infrastructure to remote schools and villages.
Eswatini is a land locked country in Southern Africa with a population of just over a million people. It's population is young, with an average age of 20 years. Average annual income is around $400 Australian dollars and unemployment is high , at roughly 40%. The local people face a variety of health problems such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and now the added battle against COVID 19. The average life expectancy in Eswatini is 58 years.
We had found our worthy cause!
Supplying clean drinking water to outlying villages would dramatically improve the general health of entire surrounding communities. As well as upgrading all areas for improved sanitation, a community fresh water supply does away with the need for school age children to travel back and forth to distant wells and questionable water sources. In some cases, it can generate community income from market gardens as well.
A reliable clean water supply would not only save lives , but better still, can be supplied and installed for the cost of the tanks and plumbing hardware only.
This is down to MOSS Foundation’s super efficient “direct funds pipeline” and employing our own water scheme design and construction team.
Funds raised by MOSS Foundation will purchase water tanks, pumps, piping and related hardware . Local villagers are tasked with digging all piping trenches and trained to perform plumbing maintenance and general system upkeep. All funds raised by the the MOSS Deck Art Shows go directly to the villages in need and nothing is lost in management or other costs.
Our African Team, led by Bruce Jameson, supplies MOSS with fully costed project options and our Australian based management group selects those which will have the greatest impact per dollar.
Bruce appraises all water scheme requests, then surveys the relative needs of the community.
The MOSS model has proven successful due to the efforts by our team to engage and empower the local communities in partnering with us to deliver our projects. MOSS ensures we have the commitment from the local villagers to provide support such the labour required to dig hundreds, sometimes thousands of meters of piping trenches, assisting in installation efforts and so on.
MOSS have now been delivering successful and life changing water schemes since 2006.
