When Kenyan Joel Mwale, 16, was recovering from dysentery brought on by contaminated drinking water during Kenya’s annual dry season, he came up with an idea to help his community and make money, VenturesAfrica reports.

Investing all his savings, Mwale sunk a well in his village, using his initial $95 investment to create SkyDrop Enterprises, a water harvesting project that purifies, bottles and packages rainwater for sale.

He got inspiration for storing the water when he noticed a water tank in town that was storing rainwater from gutters of the roof of a closed-down yogurt shop.

He thought it would be a good idea to trap rain water, store it in a reservoir, purify it and then sell it to the public, he told VenturesAfrica.

But Mwale was unable to secure financing. However he managed to persuade the owner of the yogurt shop to lease him the location.

Mwale knocked on the doors of all the local banks and non-government organizations for funding, and they all declined his proposal. “I guess they did not see my idea as viable. Besides, who could listen to a 16-year-old school drop-out?” he recalls.

So Mwale raised his own financing by leasing his father’s land. His mother didn’t like the idea, VenturesAfrica reports.

SkyDrop Enterprises slowly gained market share from selling 10 bottles a day to more than 33,000 bottles in 2012 despite significant competition from already established drinking water bottlers.

In 2011, Mwale won the Anzisha Prize for youth leadership in recognition of his innovative solution to solve a problem facing his community. The $30,000 prize enabled him to provide for his family and jobs in his community.

MasterCard Foundation provided $2.5 million to support his project in 2012, VenturesAfrica reports. He bought a piece of land where more wells will be drilled.

“The borehole will make it possible for us to produce 6,000 liters of water per hour,” he said. “This will be an addition to our current plant that gives us 5,000 liters of water per hour.

“And since the water produced by the borehole may be more than what we intend to use, we have plans to pipe the surplus to the community at no cost, serving a population of 500,000.”