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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An audit of the Ugandan accounts of NKKD WATSAN for the year ended September 2013 took place in early 2015, carried out by Carr Stanyer Sims & Co. from Kampala.

The audit stated that in their opinion, the financial statements give a true and fair view of the financial position of the NKKD WATSAN Programme as at 30 September 2013, and its financial performance and cash flows for the year then ended in accordance with the accounting policies of the programme, and comply with the Donor Agreement terms. The audit of the accounts for the year ended September 2014 is currently underway.

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We want to thank a number of churches for their ongoing generous support, in particular recently the parish churches of Beaumaris, Bishops Waltham, Fairbourne, Faringdon, Farlington, Fyfield and Tywyn.

Each church has provided significant donations in the past year or so for which we are extremely grateful. Selhurst Evangelical church have joined Farlington in twinning their church toilet with toilets at Kinyasaano Girls High School.

Notable fund-raising activities have included Steve Bunce of Faringdon Baptist Church who raised almost £1,700 by running the Brighton Marathon. Splendid concerts were organised by friends in Beaumaris in June 2014, featuring their local Waitrose prize-winning choir, while All Saints Faringdon displayed remarkable local talent in a concert in their church in October 2014. The Manor School in Abingdon completed a sponsored walk in May 2013, proceeds to be shared by WATSAN and two other charities. We thank them warmly for their support which raised over £1,200 for WATSAN plus Gift Aid.

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Our Patron, Bishop Andrew Watson, and three Trustees travelled to Uganda on 3rd April 2014.

We received the warmest of welcomes, Uganda style, wherever we went with the local WATSAN team to visit our sponsoring dioceses, projects and beneficiaries. We wish to thank everyone, from the Diocesan Bishops and the Co-ordinator through to the beneficiaries and practitioners in the field, for the warm welcome and generous hospitality experienced everywhere in both Dioceses/Districts throughout the tour. A particular highlight was the singing, dancing and recitation of pupils at the Burema Secondary School.

We visited several projects under construction at Nyarushanje, Nyabiteete and Burema, several recently completed at Kinyasano High School and Katebeere, and three older gravity flow schemes at Karerema, Kifunju and Nyambizi. We were greatly impressed by the quality of workmanship displayed in the recently completed projects and the skill, determination and dedication of the masons, plumbers, community mobilisers and hygiene educators. There were particularly fine examples at Nyabiteete spring reconstruction, Nyarushanje (reconstruction of the Ruburizi source and pipeline), the bath shelter at Burema Secondary School, and the spring reconstruction at the nearby trading centre.

A particular focus and highlight of the Tour was a Workshop at the Acacia Hotel in Mbarara attended by 31 people including the Bishops of North Kigezi and Kinkiizi, a representative of the Directorate of Water Development (DWD) in Kampala, the District Water Officers from Rukungiri and Kanungu, representatives of the NKKD WATSAN Programme Management Committee, including the Chairman, LC5, Rukungiri District, the Co-ordinator, and the whole of the Ugandan Team. There were presentations by Engineer Gilbert Kimanzi, Deputy Commissioner at the Department of Water Development in Kampala, in which he acknowledged that the role of NGOs such as NKKD WATSAN is indispensable because government, although good at policy, was not good at implementation and lacked resources in the front line for water development. Subsequent discussion amongst delegates considered the official coverage statistics for water services to be misleading because they are based on a maximum distance of 1.5 km. from home to safe source.

Bishop Dan Zoreka’s and Bishop Patrick Tugume Tusingwire’s papers, respectively on the twin challenges of basic health practices and hygiene, and environmental degradation of water sources, highlighted major challenges facing Uganda in these areas.

There were valuable contributions by the Co-ordinator and members of the WATSAN team on the current programme and some of the challenges that had been faced and overcome, and lessons learned, which raised some personnel issues needing to be addressed. Canon Eric Kamuteera, who finally retired in December 2013 after over 20 years of distinguished service with WATSAN, presented a paper on the history of WATSAN, beginning with WaterAid in 1984, through the foundation of NKKD WATSAN and the UK Support Group in 2004–05. The workshop was enhanced by a series of discussions in small groups on “Mission, Vision and Objectives”, “Role of the Programme Management Committee”, and “Relationships and Communication”. A communique has been produced recording the conclusions and recommendations of the Workshop.

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