Thank you to everyone who got involved in Oxfam Water Week 2011, and helped to raise over £40,000 for Oxfam projects in Mali.

Oxfam is working with local partners in 25 communities in the Gao and Koulikoro regions of Mali, helping to provide better access to clean water, and therefore giving children more time to attend school.

Here are just some of the things that your support is helping to achieve:

• Water points are being refurbished in schools to provide clean drinking water to around 2000 pupils and teachers.
• Over 600 students will benefit from refreshed, more functional, and weather proofed school buildings
• Eleven blocks of latrines are under construction in eight schools.
• Schools and teachers have received hygiene kits, training on hygiene promotion and have set up hygiene clubs.
• Girls' clubs are being supported and the importance of girls' education is being promoted.
• Mothers' associations are being supported, helping them to generate income and reinvest into school budgets.
• Teachers are receiving refresher training and support.

"There have been very significant improvements to the lives of the people in these communities: more children go to school, and more girls in particular, more water points, classrooms and teachers' houses have been built or renovated… And the school committees have been trained too… Thanks to the project, we've come out of the darkness really."
Mahamane Bould Toure, Mayor of Temera, Gao.

But our water projects in Mali are not just about giving schools new taps and toilets; we work together with communities to identify their own problems find solutions. That's why four schools in Mali held their very own Oxfam Water Week.

Pupils used this week to learn about the problems of drinking unsafe water, think about how they could overcome these problems and act by showing the rest of the community how to make the water they have safe to drink.

Here are the stories from just two schools, from Gao district in Mali, who were involved in Oxfam Water Week 2011.

Dara School kicked off their Oxfam Water Week with a day of teaching, discussions and debates about the importance of water to the school and community, and a visit to the well to talk about the difficulties of accessing water.

Pupils learnt how to safely fetch, transport, clean and store water, and designed drawings to educate the rest of their community about the dangers of contaminated water.

The week ended with a visit to a local river, where the village leader shared stories about the river's importance to their community.

Pupils at Tadiana school wanted to get involved with Water Week and make the rest of the community aware of how important clean water is. Many of the girls miss school because of the amount of time it takes them to collect water for their families.