WATSAN supporter Philippa Piper has created two beautiful quilts that she is generously offering to sell for the benefit of WATSAN’s Kazuru project.
In the cold winter weather, these quilts could keep you warm as you snuggle up to watch TV! They are available separately, or together. Offers will be considered in excess of £50 each. Handmade and unique, they make a perfect gift! Every penny of your purchase will go towards the fundraising for Phase 2 of WATSAN’s ambitious Kazuru gravity flow scheme, which has recently started in earnest.
The quilts are made from cotton with polyester/cotton backing and fleece padding for warmth and easy laundering. They measure 136cm x 230 cm each so can fit a single bed easily, or make a topper for a double bed or quilt for the sofa. Pictured below.
If you would like to help WATSAN in its fundraising efforts, do consider getting creative in a way such as this, or consider taking part in or donating to the Walk For Water in June (details to follow), where participants will be walking around 20km for WATSAN in areas around the country.
We are incredibly grateful that six wonderful WATSAN supporters have stepped forward to lead a Walk for Water in June 2025, with local walks taking place in Leicestershire, The Cotswolds, Hampshire, Somerset, Kent and West Sussex.
This year’s walks will raise funds for Phase 2 of the Kazuru Gravity Flow Scheme. Phase 1 is in the process of being built, with the initial infrastruce now in place. Those on the August mission trip, attended by 21 people of all ages, helped to construct part of the scheme. We have an ambitious target to raise a further £50,000 for this phase of the project, with Walks for Water one of WATSAN’s most significant sources of funding since 2011.
WATSAN’s trustees are very grateful to the walk leaders for volunteering to run local walks, and to WATSAN supporter Andrew Starr for coordinating everyone. You can now sign up to take part in one of these walks by contacting the walk leader as below, who will support you with logistics, and with getting sponsorship to raise funds.
If these locations don’t suit you, do not fear! If you would like to complete your own walking challenge for WATSAN, we encourage you to do so, just contact Andrew Starr with your ideas.
Promotional ideas
Make sure to tell family and friends that you are doing the walk, and encourage them to join. Fundraisers can use our online platform Stewardship to set up their own personal page where friends and family can be invited to give. Share this on social media to raise awareness for the walk and WATSAN. We will also be creating a new video about Kazuru that you can share to encourage donations – watch this space!
Sign up now
Leicestershire: Saturday 21st June, 14 miles in the Charnwood Hills; contact Andrew Starr
The Cotswolds: Saturday 14th June, 18 miles along the River Windrush; contact Stephen Haywood
Hampshire: Saturday 21st June, 14 miles (plus shorter option) “Sights and Sounds of the South Downs” starting in Bishop’s Waltham; contact James Hunt
Somerset: Saturday 7th June, 7 miles starting in South Petherton (11am start); contact Anne Gurner
Kent: Friday 27th June, 8.5 miles starting in Dymchurch (10.30am start); contact Martin Fosten
West Sussex: Saturday 14th June, 12 miles (plus 5-mile option) starting in Amberley; contact Graham Piper
With a mission team recently returning from another life-changing trip to Uganda with WATSAN, many people have been asking us what more they can do to help and be involved.
The trip, which saw a 21-strong team visit Uganda in August 2024, has ignited a passion for WATSAN amongst its participants. There is nothing like seeing our work in practice on the ground to cement a commitment to WATSAN, and this is how most of our trustees came to be involved.
There are various concrete ways in which anyone can help WATSAN now! Please do consider becoming:
An Ambassador – promote WATSAN at your church, workplace and other networks WATSAN can provide you with template PowerPoint slides, leaflets, video content for sharing. Download resource pack >
A Supporter – start giving regularly to WATSAN to provide stability to the charity WATSAN benefits from a small cohort of regular donors who give anything from £5 to £50 a month – whatever you can afford is very much appreciated. Sign up here >
A Trustee – consider joining the UK board of trustees WATSAN Uganda UK Support is run by a small team of volunteer trustees who fundraise for and advise the staff team in Uganda, and is looking for people with admin, comms and finance experience. Contact WATSAN’s Chair Graham Piper >
An Associate – help with specific tasks that support WATSAN’s work WATSAN’s Associates take on more discrete tasks without becoming a full trustee, such as events or communications.Contact WATSAN’s Chair Graham Piper >
A Trip Organiser – help organise or be part of the leadership team on another trip We are hoping to target another, similar trip within the next two to three years. Anyone of any age can be part of the leadership team. Contact trip organiser James Hunt >
Something else? – share your own ideas for what you could do!
Please do use the links above to take action now. Alternatively, if you’d like to discuss any of these options, you can contact us.
In December 2024 WATSAN’s trustees received a detailed update from the team in Uganda on their progress on Kazuru, an ambitious scheme that will tackle the lack of safe drinking water by building a community water supply that uses gravity to supply a series of tap stands.
A team of 10 families in the community were given a demonstration about how to organise the home environment to prioritise hygiene, equipping them to build their own at home.
The demonstration included the construction of a dish-drying rack, a bath shelter, a pit latrine, a compost pit and a tippy tap for hand washing. Afterwards, the participants built what they had learnt in their own homes, and by the end of the quarter, five homes had been completed.
Constructing the best practice home
Learning to make a tippy tappy
Constructing a bathing shelter
Contructing a dish-drying rack
Constructing a bath shelter using tree branches
Community meetings and training
To begin the project, a meeting was held to familiarise the members of the community with their role and explain the project. Working so closely with the community means the project is genuinely empowering of them, and enables them to maintain and operate the scheme themselves, ensuring long-term sustainability of the project. A hygiene and sanitation promotion community meeting was also held where the WATSAN team explained how local people could contribute to the construction of the project, as well as covering safeguarding and child protection.
Transect walks
The team in Uganda designed a checklist of hygiene observations to look out for on ‘transect walks’ around the community, including areas such as clothes washing and rubbish disposal, and recorded their findings to be used as a benchmark for future progress.
Construction (aka “hardware”)
Tanks to collect and purify water
Construction of the principal infrastructure to establish the GFS is complete. This includes
Protecting the raw water sources (“eyes”) from erosion and landslides caused by agricultural activity uphill and heavy rainfall
Connecting these to a 2.5m3 stone masonry water intake tank, levelling the surrounding area and planting it with environmentally friendly grass
Building a 4,500-litre stone masonry sedimentation tank downhill from the water intake tank, to enhance the filtration process, and connecting it to the water intake, including an overflow, washouts, and outlet for both tanks
Building and connecting a sedimentation tank and a reservoir tank further downhill.
The construction work was supervised weekly to ensure progress and provide encouragement to the staff and participating community.
Adapting on the spot
Because of a change to the original scheme design and the discovery of a new water source, the position of the reservoir tank and sedimentation tank was altered during the build. This involved finding a suitable new path for the water pipeline and prepping for the excavation of trenches in the next quarter.
Looking ahead
Casting our eyes to Phase 2, the Kazuru project is still our main ask, as there is still much work to be done on the initial infrastructure that has been built in Phase 1. Phase 2 will enable more pipework to be laid to supply tap stands to key local areas such as workplaces and schools. Phase 2 will also focus on a hygiene education programme and a sanitation building exercise.
Every two years, supporters of WATSAN have stepped out on challenging sponsored walks to raise funds for a specific project that is happening in Uganda. Next year’s target project will be Phase 2 of the Kazuru gravity flow scheme.
Right now we have an ambitious gravity flow scheme in progress in Kazuru, where ground was broken in August. The launch of this project was attended by this year’s tour party of 21 visitors from the UK, on the hillside above the area to be served.
WATSAN has funds for half of that scheme, but needs another £50,000 to enable the project to be completed, with another similar project waiting in the wings. An exciting aspect of this project, which is located near the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, close to the border with DR Congo, is that we may be able to extend it to serve a Batwa (former pygmy) settlement.
Biennial Walks for Water were originally centrally organised, but, since COVID, have been successfully dispersed around the country to allow more people to take part. The funds raised from these walks has been one of WATSAN’s most significant sources of funding since 2011. The trustees are keen to maintain this tradition, and are very pleased that supporter Andrew Starr has volunteered to co-ordinate and provide support for a cluster of walks proposed for a Saturday in June 2025, around the longest day – the preferred date would be Saturday 21st June, but other Saturdays in early June/July might be preferred locally. An online get-together to connect with other regional walkers will be organised on the evening of 21st June.
We normally hope for about ten walks across the whole country. Some supporters have organised walks before and may be in a position to do so again. Others may like to pass the baton to a family member or friend, or take up the challenge for the first time themselves. Being a walk leader means planning a route of up to 20 miles (but it could be much less); recruiting walkers from your local networks; managing a safe environment on the day; and organising local sponsorship (support provided).
WATSAN Uganda 