CUrrent projects:
Shambavarungu Primary School:
Current Cost: $9,000
House of Stone completed its newest water project at Shambavarungu Primary School in Zimbabwe's Zvimba District. The school had no reliable source of water, making daily life difficult for students, teachers, and the surrounding community. After repeated requests for assistance and careful assessment by our local partner, JF Kapnek Trust, Shambavarungu was selected as a priority project.
Completed in 2025, the new solar-powered borehole now provides safe drinking water for the school while also creating opportunities for improved sanitation, school gardens, and income-generating activities. As with all House of Stone water projects, the goal extends beyond providing clean water. Through community savings groups, agricultural initiatives, and local leadership, the school is building the resources needed to become increasingly self-sufficient.
Shambavarungu represents the next step in House of Stone's sustainable development model—using clean water as the foundation for better health, education, nutrition, and long-term economic independence.
Completed projects:
Pilot Water Project at Chishoshe Primary:
Final Cost: $7,000
House of Stone completed its latest project at Chishoshe Primary School in the Chegutu District. Chishoshe Primary serves about 500 students and hosts 10 staff who live on the grounds. The school has no electricity, and had no running water and very limited teacher housing. After consultation with the headmaster, parent leaders and with community imput, it was decided that constructing a borehole to provide reliable water was their highest priority. Our project was completed through our local partner JF Kapnek Foundation Zimbabwe in the spring of 2023. The school now is able to provide clean drinking water to its students, as well as support limited agriculture, raising chickens and growing vegetables, both to expand food for the students and as a form of income to subsidize the schools limited funding. Each House of Stone water project is designed to become a catalyst for long-term community development. Clean water provides the foundation for improved health, education, food security, and locally generated income, allowing schools to become increasingly self-sustaining over time. The Herz HD Stiftung (a German foundation that Arnd Herz also co-leads) has already been applying that learning to the next 3 schools (Kawara, Nyamweda and Makuvatsine.)
Future projects:
Our Moonshot: Water for Every School in Chegutu
Estimatesd Cost: $300,000
Imagine a district where every child learns at a school with clean, solar-pumped water — where teachers no longer walk for miles with buckets, gardens flourish beside classrooms, and communities thrive around their schools.
That’s our moonshot:
to bring safe water to every school in the Chegutu District of rural Zimbabwe. Out of roughly 250 schools, about 50 still lack access to water on their grounds. Each solar borehole costs about $6,000, serving an entire school community — hundreds of children, teachers, and families.
With every borehole drilled, we move one step closer to a district where no child learns in thirst and every school can grow its own future.
Together, we can make Chegutu the first district in Zimbabwe where water, learning, and dignity flow side by side.