DRINKING WATER WELLS
For places with little to no access to clean drinking water you can imagine the impact this has had on these communities. People that were walking miles to dip plastic containers in dirty streams can now pump clean drinking water within minutes. In many communities in Togo, Uganda, and Kenya, disease from dirty water kills more people every year than all forms of violence. In order to break this cycle we have built five mechanically powered wells around the Yoto River in Togo and two manually pumped well in the village of Babykyala, near Lake Kyogo in Uganda.
Water Tanks
Many areas of Uganda receive enough rain that a large water tank, which receives runoff from a roof, can support a school or community for a period of time. Because these are much less expensive than a well, we have provided five tanks at schools near the Jinja area of Uganda. These tanks in partnership with our water filters are providing a critical source of clean water for many students that were walking up to four miles to fetch dirty water.
WATER QUALITY TRAINING AND EQUIPMENT
Most of the waterways in the areas where we work are polluted from human waste. In some instances industrial waste and sewage pollute these waterways, but the Riverkeepers there lacked the tools to test them. In 2018 we provided equipment and training to the Lake Kyogo Waterkeeper and Kenyan Lake Victoria Waterkeeper to test E. coli in their waterways. Now that they have the tools, they can test their waterways and use this data to advocate for the necessary cleanup.
WATER FILTERS
We recently partnered with Wine to Water to provide affordable water filters that support a school or home for up to 10 years with clean water. We installed almost 50 water filters and water tanks at 17 schools, 5 health centers (including a maternity ward) and one rural fishing village center. These filters will provide clean for over 6,000 students that previously lacked any source of clean water.
EQUIPMENT SUPPORT
Many of the needs that we take for granted in the developed world are insurmountable obstacles in parts of rural Africa. Our funds to date have helped provide transportation and training to the Lake Kyogo Waterkeeper so the community could plant 30,000 trees along the lake. These trees will restore the lake habitat. Some of the funds were also used to build a wooden patrol boat to help their water sampling efforts.