WATSAN has partnered with US charity Compassion International to deliver clean water and hygienic sanitation at Rwere, Katurika and Burama child development centres (CDCs).

Compassion International runs the three child development centres, which cater for children from the most poverty-stricken backgrounds in the area, including many orphans, who gather regularly for support, teaching, training and a good meal.

All three centres lacked adequate water and sanitation facilities, and had expanded well beyond their capability of providing core services, meaning they were playing continuous catch-up. Plans were drawn up by the WATSAN team for new toilets, changing rooms and water tanks for all three sites, and this project is now complete, having been largely using funds raised by our third “Walk for Water” in the Shropshire Hills.

Work was completed at Rwerere earlier this year and handed over to the community on 18th May 2016. In recent months Katurika and Burama have also been completed, with commissioning in October 2016. Each centre now has a large ferro-cement rainwater harvesting tank, a six-stance lined pit latrine, and a two-stance latrine with a urinal for use by staff. As always with WATSAN projects, associated health and hygiene education activities were undertaken, in parallel with the construction work.

Read about other projects in the pipeline

WATSAN volunteers will be available for questions at our stand at Farmer Gow’s sculpture trail until 9th October. The commission arising from any art sales at the exhibition will benefit two charities, including WATSAN.

The innovative art exhibition, Sculpture on the Farm, is an installation of nearly 300 works of art, including sculpture and paintings by local artists. Sculptor Lendon Scantlebury (pictured below) has carefully drawn on his long experience as exhibition organiser to bring together an eclectic mix of artworks that form a fascinating trail among the animals and landscape of Farmer Gow’s.

WATSAN trustees were delighted to attend the opening night of the exhibition on Friday 23rd September, where many guests visited our stand to discover our ‘magic tap’ and hear about our work in South-Western Uganda. Please do come and see us and enjoy this unique day out!

There will be daily demonstrations of wood and stone carving by the artists – using local wood to create dynamic flora and fauna, and stone from distant Zimbabwe carved in intricate and beautiful designs.

All the pieces on display are for sale, with 10% of the sales supporting WATSAN and Oxford Friends of Hope and Faith School. We are extremely grateful to Anne Gow, the farm’s owner, for this wonderful opportunity.

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WATSAN’s UK Support team are focusing all fundraising efforts on making a new project happen at a rural primary school in desperate need of better water and sanitation.

Rumbugu Primary School has around 400 pupils and 30 staff – and yet the school has no reliable source of water. A protected spring supplies intermittent water to a single tap that serves the whole school – but on the many occasions where no water is available from this tap, children have to resort to collecting water from clay pools. These pools have formed in former clay quarries, from which material has been extracted for brick-making, so the water in them is polluted and completely unsuitable to be consumed as the staff and pupils do regularly. As a result, illnesses are rife.

The sanitation situation is not much better, with the 40 female pupils sharing just one toilet.

WATSAN feels compelled to intervene as soon as possible to improve the lives of these pupils, as well as the 150-strong local community that also depends on the same water source. We propose two rainwater catchment tanks to collect water from the school roof and from the roof of the adjacent church; three pit latrines, bringing the number of toilets to eight; and the provision of bath shelters, dish drying racks and tippy taps, all in association with a health and hygiene education programme.

To achieve this, WATSAN needs to raise a further £18,000. We are seeking donations to this project via our online fundraising page, and plan for the proceeds of the forthcoming Walk for Water to contribute a large part of the project.

Sign up for the Walk for Water

Sam from the Software Team ties the knot.

We are delighted to report that Sam Mugirobusingye, Software Team Leader in our team in Uganda, was married to Otiria Akatuhimbisa on 13th August, 2016. We congratulate them on their marriage and wish them a long, happy and fruitful time in their new life together as man and wife.

The trustees have made a gift to the couple as wedding present and as a contribution to the costs of their wedding ceremony and celebrations.

Meet the leaders of the Ugandan staff team

The trustees received a generous offer from Mark Wickstead, a former colleague of Ian Bensted’s in Thames Water, to spend six weeks with the project in the field in order to advise on a strategy for sustainability.

Mark began work in early October and has now returned to the UK, and has prepared a report and recommendations, which the trustees are now digesting to understand how it should inform future strategy.

The study extended across both Districts, and liaison was undertaken with both District Water Officers. Mark worked closely with the team, in particular Marius, our Sustainability Coordinator, and with Charles, our man in Kanungu. Members of the Software Team also joined in the study to undertake consumer interviews at tapstands and springs. The study takes in our three main categories of schemes: gravity flow, institutional and individual springs. The Ugandan national database confirms that there are around 2,400 of the latter, many of which are still in use, built by WaterAid/WATSAN since the mid 1980s.

Mark organised a team workshop at the end of his tour to review his findings and discuss the way forward.

It is evident from Marius’ and Charles’ previous valuable work, mainly on the dozen or so gravity flow schemes (well over 200 tapstands), and from early inspections during this present study, that mostly minor problems develop progressively, without necessarily affecting basic functionality for some time. Taps are frequent culprits! Flow reduction at springs, lack of basic care and attention at tapstands and springs, minor faults in supporting structures, and so on, abound. It is already clear that the database that is being developed, founded on the national database, will be invaluable in providing for action planning in terms of both absolute justification and prioritisation, and plenty of work will ensue.

Ian Bensted, Chair of the UK Support Group, accompanied Mark to the project to introduce him to the team, and remained for 10 days. He took the opportunity to visit current projects at Nyakabungo and Kiringa, and to visit and review future plans for Kinyasano Girls’ High School and the three Compassion International Child Development Centres. He found the team in good heart and very busy. It was good the see the Field Director and his team working well together, and continuing to produce high-quality results in both the software and hardware areas. However, the maintenance and sustainability of schemes already completed is a constant battle, and it is clear that the appointment just over a year ago of a Sustainability Coordinator, as well as the study now undertaken, will prove of considerable importance in WATSAN’s future programmes of work.

As if to emphasise the significance of sustainability of our projects, shortly after Mark and Ian arrived there was a serious accident on the road between Rukungiri and Kanungu at a place called Kiruruma, where a bridge collapsed under a lorry loaded with timber, also with people riding on top, and the lorry ended up in the river below. There were sadly fatalities and serious injuries, but the accident also severed two of the main pipelines serving our Nyambizi gravity flow scheme, leaving more than 4,000 beneficiaries without water at its 36 tapstands. The WATSAN Team were mobilised rapidly and have restored the lines, and the UK Support Team made available a sum of £1,200 to meet the immediate costs of new pipes and labour at the bridge, and at two other places where repairs to the pipeline were also needed, due to disruption by the highway authority whilst widening a road, and naturally occurring embankment slippage at another site.

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