We are creating a brand-new 2025 wall calendar to help you plan your months, and to raise money and awareness for WATSAN. Order in time for Christmas for our imminent print run.

The calendars will feature a selection of images from WATSAN’s projects and work, and you can display them proudly in your home as a supporter of WATSAN, or give them to friends and family as presents. They will be A5 wall calendars with a grid format for each day of the month, so that you can write in key dates.

The cost per calendar is £14.00 plus postage, payable by bank transfer. Please complete the form below by 30th November 2024 to receive your calendar.

WATSAN calendar order form

WATSAN supporter Mandy McIntosh runs a fair trade shop in Ashby de la Zouch and online. To mark World Toilet Day on 19th November, she is donating 10% of her takings to WATSAN from 15th to 30th November 2024.

The offer will include both sales from Mandy’s bricks and mortar shop, and her online shop www.fair2all.net, where you can buy upcycled and fair trade gifts, homewares, accessories and cards.

In 2017 Mandy was part of a team who went to South West Uganda and participated in a WATSAN project working with the local community to provide latrines in their school. Once the latrine block for older girls was completed, over 60 girls returned to education.

WATSAN’s trustees would like to thank Mandy very much for once again making this generous contribution to WATSAN, as she does every year for World Toilet Day. And of course, we encourage other supporters to do their Christmas shopping on the Fair2All website!

Visit the Fair2All website

At our trustee meeting on 19th October 2024, WATSAN’s founder and Chair since 2004 stepped down, handing over the Chair to Graham Piper, who has been a trustee and Vice-Chair for many years.

Ian founded WATSAN Uganda – UK Support in 2004, having worked as a consultant for WaterAid in the region since 1986. He built connections and friendships in North Kigezi and Kinkiizi Dioceses of South-West Uganda that continue to this day, and are the basis of the impact WATSAN is making every year to people living in the poorest rural communities in those areas.

During Ian’s time as WATSAN’s Chair, alongside his wife Ellie he has been instrumental in:

• Raising over £1m in donations
• Building 12 gravity flow schemes
• Bringing on board 235 committed supporters and six current trustees
• Organising 23 Walks for Water
• Constructing 18 institutional projects in schools and community centres
• Transforming the lives of over 200,000 people.

The handover was the culmination of several months of planning, including Ian’s last trip to Uganda alongside the group led by his son-in-law James Hunt from St Peter’s Church.

At the meeting Ian paid tribute to the other trustees, and put full confidence in Graham to lead WATSAN into the future. Trustees agreed that Graham had a hard act to follow, but that no-one was better placed than him to take the reins from Ian! Trustees presented Ian and Ellie with a card, photo book of memories and hand-written messages, and some salad servers made from Ankole cattle horns.

WATSAN’s Patron, Bishop Andrew Watson, said to Ian: “Thank you for all the tremendous work you have done in supplying clean water and proper sanitation to a corner of Western Uganda. Your commitment to this has been exemplary, and the love you have poured into it. I, along with thousands of others, am so grateful.”

WATSAN Uganda’s Director, Rev Canon Eric Baingana, said: “As you retire, always remember that we, the people of Rukungiri and Kanungu Districts, shall live to remember you for the supply of accessible, safe and clean water, and improvement of sanitation and hygiene in our communities. Thank you for your immeasurable support.”

Ian and Ellie remain trustees of WATSAN Uganda – UK Support and will continue to share their experience and wisdom with the team.

If you are interested in becoming a volunteer trustee or associate with WATSAN, please contact us!

Longtime WATSAN supporter Jenny passed away on Easter Sunday 2024. Her family wanted to continue her lifetime’s work improving health outcomes by raising funds for WATSAN.

Jenny Vaughan, who died aged 55 of breast cancer, was a consultant neurologist best known for her courageous campaigning to reform the law on gross negligence manslaughter, and end the blame game in healthcare.

Jenny, her husband Matt and their two boys have had a passion for improving health for many years. As two NHS consultants, they were aware of how fortunate we are in the UK to have an NHS.

Jenny and Matt believed that in the developing world, the most effective way to improve health is to ensure a sustainable supply of clean water. They have been supporters of WATSAN for many years, participating in several Walks for Water and visiting the project in Uganda. Despite Jenny’s deteriorating health from breast cancer, she recently helped organise an online fundraising auction for WATSAN, raising £5k towards our Kazuru project.

Jenny passed away on Easter Sunday 2024, and her family chose WATSAN to benefit from donations made in her memory. The appeal has exceeded the £500 target, raising over £1,500 thanks to donations from people who loved and admired Jenny. WATSAN’s trustees are incredibly thankful for this wonderful support from Jenny and her family, dear friends and supporters of WATSAN.

Donations to Jenny’s appeal are still open, and can be made on Stewardship here.

In August 2024, a team from St Peter’s Church, Bishop’s Waltham embarked on their second trip to Uganda, spending two weeks in direct contact with WATSAN’s life-saving work on the ground in South-West Uganda.

The team of 21 people of all ages spent their time getting to know our amazing staff team, and meeting the communities and beneficiaries of our work. The team has spent months fundraising for our Kazuru gravity flow scheme project, and carried out manual labour and community engagement work on the project in situ.

The group was a mixed team from across Hampshire, Oxford and London, brought together by friendship and church connections. A large portion of the team belong to St Peter’s Bishops Waltham and St John’s Locks Heath, and it included a vicar, an engineer, nurse, business woman and a handful currently working in government. The team was accompanied on the trip by WATSAN’s founder and Chair Ian Bensted, on what he expects to be his last trip to Uganda in anticipation of his retirement as Chair in October.

Team members fundraised to pay their own travelling costs and also for a contribution towards the project. This included a cycle round the Isle of Wight, lots of painting and decorating, airport taxi service, half marathons, quiz nights, fine dining and sing along evenings! 

The itinerary took in site visits, work with a local orphanage and a hospital, engagement with the Mother’s Union and touristic activities such as a trip to Murchison Falls National Park. The group was also able to visit the fresh site at Kazuru, and to help to literally prepare the ground for pipes to be laid.

The trip’s leader, Rev James Hunt, said following the trip: “All of on the team are still processing and will be reflecting on all that happened and we have learned for some time to come. For me, the heart of the trip is about growing love and friendship that gives practical and spiritual hope. For the team members, my hope is what happens now after the trip: a better perspective on life in general (love, friendship, loyalty, integrity and partnership) and our specific purpose in life. And overall my hope and that of WATSAN is that more lives will be lived in support of what WATSAN does, or other work like it.”

For a real insight into the experience, you can read the team’s brilliant blog, written during the trip, on Substack.