Successful completion of four wells in Uganda.

Thanks to the help of four individual sponsors, we have been able to impact on the lives of almost 2,000 people through the introduction of four new water hand pumps. The pumps are sited in different villages and benefit 182 households, each having an average of ten occupants.

Working with a local organisation we were able to effectively and efficiently identify the villages with the greatest need. Initially we undertook an education programme teaching the best way to utilise the clean water source and how not to pollute it with animal or human waste. Of course in addition we had to teach the local inhabitants how to both use and maintain the hand pumps.

We ensured that simple but lasting methods of construction were used in order to make long-term maintainence feasible and understandable. There is no point in having a high-tech pump if no one locally can either understand how to repair it or indeed be able to afford to do so.

In each of the locations many people had been made seriously ill and, unfortunately, there are a large number of cases where people died because of the poor quality of water they were forced to drink. There was no option other than to drink from local ponds, as shown below, that were used by livestock as well as human beings. Unfortunately animal waste often contaminated the water source – but a shortage of water meant that it still needed to be drunk.

The suffering this caused is indescribable and we are grateful that those who helped us in the construction of these wells have permitted us to alleviate the misery experienced by these unfortunate people. Each well costs £2,000, which works out at less than £4.50 per person to provide clean drinking water, the very basic of needs, and a ongoing chance of survival. If you feel you are able to support us in the construction of further wells, please do get in touch.

The people in the villages we have supported have gone from collecting water from the dirty, polluted water source to the clean drinkable, safe water from a hand pump.