There’s a new way to contact all of the trustees and to find us online…
The eagle-eyed amongst our supporters will have noticed that WATSAN has a refreshed logo – something of an evolution rather than a revolution, bringing our visual identity up to date whilst, we hope, retaining the spirit of the classic logo, which was designed by our friends in Uganda.
We wanted to make sure everyone was also aware that we have now retired our previous website address (nkkdwatsan-uganda.com, which is no longer available) in favour of the much simpler watsanuganda.org. Additionally and most importantly, you can now contact the whole trustee team at hello@watsanuganda.org.
We have also produced a new information leaflet about what WATSAN does and our impact, which can be found here. If our supporters would like printed copies of these for their own fundraising or events, please do let us know!
Due to COVID restrictions, 15 different local walks were held across England, bringing in a record number of participants and raising £28,212 for WATSAN.
Walks of all kinds across many different terrains took place up and down the country throughout June 2021, and photos from each walk can be found here. Participants ranged from families of two or three people completing their own walks, to larger groups of up to 30 walking together and supported with refreshments along the way. The map shows the locations of the walks!
Our first walker and youngest participant was Amber Bushell (pictured), aged just 7, who completed her accompanied ascent of Coniston Old Man (2633 ft.) to mark her birthday. All the walkers completed personal challenges, whatever the length of their walk, to remember the difficulties that men, women and children face each day in Uganda on their walks to collect water.
On the evening of 19th June, we held a short celebration of all the walks on Zoom, after many walkers had completed their challenge that day. It was a chance to come together to hear how the walks had gone, discover more about the target project at Bwanga, and find out roughly how much we had raised collectively. A recording of this event can be found below.
Well done everyone, particularly to the hard-working organisers of each event, and our thanks to each and every walker and donor, great and small, for such an amazing result! Funds will be directed towards WATSAN’s project at Bwanga Hill, which will now proceed, and £10,000 has already been sent out to Uganda. More will follow in October. The educational components are likely to be delayed by the ongoing Covid-19 lockdown there, which we expect to last at least until September.
A further sum of £2,300 has been sent during the third quarter of the year to cover ‘furlough’ payments to the software team, who cannot work at present as no more than six people are allowed to gather together; safety measures for the team such as hand sanitiser and face masks; and support for those in the team suffering from Covid, or isolating as a result of contact with the disease. Field Director Eric Baingana tells us that prices have risen astronomically since the pandemic took a hold, not only for basic medicines such as paracetamol but also for fruit and vegetables and other necessities.
The Ugandan team is thrilled with the results of the various walks and send their heartfelt thanks to the walk organisers and to each and every participant.
It is with great sadness that we received news from Bishop Dan Zoreka late on June 15th of the death that evening in Kampala of Bishop Benon Magezi of North Kigezi Diocese, at the age of 60. Bishop Benon’s battle with Covid-19 had begun two weeks earlier when he was admitted to hospital in Mbarara.
Prior to being installed as Bishop of North Kigezi in January 2017, Benon had been Treasurer of North Kigezi Diocese. He served for many years on the Ugandan WATSAN Management Committee. Members of the St Peter’s Bishops Waltham tour of the project in August 2017 will remember him at the inauguration of the Rumbugu Primary School project (pictured).
Each of the WATSAN projects, small and large, completed in his Diocese since then, has been graced with his presence at their inauguration ceremonies. In 2018 he led the first Ugandan Walk for Water, which raised over £4,000 for our Bwambara community project. In 2019 he visited the UK with his wife Gladys and confirmed his ongoing support and enthusiasm for WATSAN.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to Gladys and their five children, our friends and colleagues in the WATSAN team, and across the Diocese at large, devastated by this sudden tragic loss of their leader. The UK Trustees give thanks to God for Bishop Benon’s faithful leadership in Rukungiri, where the WATSAN team is based, and for his friendship and support over many years, culminating in his four years as Bishop of North Kigezi.
For our 2021 sponsored event, because of the uncertainties associated with the Covid-19 pandemic, we are offering a series of dispersed local walks of between 12 and 20 miles, at 12 venues across the country. Local teams will fundraise towards our water and sanitation project at Bwanga Hill.
Bwanga Hill consists of a community of 876 people, mainly pupils and staff of the secondary school, and a small kindergarten. In common with many schools in Uganda, the present water supply is inadequate and inaccessible, and sanitation facilities are likewise poorly constructed and overloaded. The new scheme will provide new large tanks, repair of the borehole and the spring plus new latrines and health and hygiene education, and sanitation improvements for pupils and the wider community.
We need £25,000 to complete this project, which has already commenced with repair of the local community spring. To achieve this, WATSAN volunteers are coordinating a series of dispersed Walks for Water – sponsored events that will see up to 30 people per event walk between 12 and 20 miles. The full list of walks is as follows:
Location
Date
Length
Walk leader
South Downs, West Pilgrim ways via Beacon Hill, Old Winchester Hill and Cheese Foot Head
Cleveland Way A circular walk from Sutton Bank Visitor Centre via Gormire Lake and Boltby to High Paradise Farm cafe, and back along the Cleveland Way.
Ham Hill, Somerset A circular walk on Ham Hill, with several access points from the various villages – with picnic at the hill top or one of our many excellent pubs
We hope that many of our supporters will join one or other of these walks, and help to raise money through sponsorship (details below) for Bwanga Hill. Anyone wishing to join a walk local to them can contact the walk leader directly and request details of the meeting point and route.
Walk leaders are responsible for planning the route (including regular breaks), risk assessing the event, providing a first aider and communicating with walkers. You take part in the event at your own risk.
We will have a celebratory event on Zoom for all walkers on Saturday 19th June at 8pm. Your walk leader can send you the details once you sign up for your walk!
Sponsorship
You can collect funds via our sponsorsheet sheet, or by creating an online fundraising page using our online donation platform Stewardship. Our Treasurer Ali Fergusson has set out step-by-step instructions for the latter to help you!
The more sponsors you get, the closer we will be to raising our target of £25,000 for Bwanga. Use the video above to persuade your friends, family and colleagues to donate.
People in rural Uganda walk miles every day to collect water from distant, polluted water sources. Let’s stand with them and walk our paths for their water.
We were delighted to see so many people at our most recent webinar, which focused on the potential of a new project at Bwanga Hill, and was the chance for supporters to share their plans for a series of virtual Walks for Water over the summer.
At the webinar testimonials from the community in Bwanga Hill were shared. This is WATSAN’s next target project and will rejuvenate crumbling water facilities at a High School of 650 students and the surrounding church and community. This was compared to a completed project at Kihihi Hill – a similar location where school students now have a water supply within the school and don’t have to miss lessons walking back and forth to distant, polluted sources. The full video outlining the potential of this project has now been published.
Plans were outlined for 12 different sponsored walks to take place in the UK during June, with walk leaders in rural and urban locations in Somerset, Kent, London, Leicester, Birmingham and Oxfordshire mobilising local friends and contacts to raise money for WATSAN. Full details of all the available walks, which will be risk assessed in a consistent way for both Covid and general safety, will be shared shortly.
We were lucky to be joined live from Uganda by Field Director Rev Eric Baingana, and Kinkiizi Link Moses Kabarebe.
WATSAN Uganda 