REACH for Uganda Water Project Progress Report

As the first calendar year of our water project draws to a close, REACH for Uganda wishes to announce that we have raised just over $310,000 so far this year, including all advanced funds and pledges. We also have $140,000 in remaining matching commitments. Please help us complete our fundraising goal of $500,000 to provide clean water infrastructure for the Arlington Academy of Hope (AAH) schools and clinics and for our 39 outreach schools in Bududa, Namisindwa, and Manafwa districts. When the infrastructure is complete at these schools, we hope that the schools will have excess clean water for much of the year, enabling them to dramatically reduce reliance on firewood and to share with the surrounding communities.

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Clean water is a scarce resource in Eastern Uganda. Students spend several hours each day gathering polluted water from the rivers and wood to boil it. Due to polluted water they use for drinking, cooking, and cleaning dishes, members of the community suffer from gastrointestinal diseases like diarrhea, typhoid, and cholera. REACH for Uganda is working to solve the problems of water scarcity and waterborne disease for our schools, clinics, and our outreach schools.

The Bududa and Namisindwa districts have plentiful rainfall, but only polluted river water is available in much of the area during the dry season. For this reason, the water systems we are installing in the AAH schools combine “gravity water” from clean sources, when available, and harvested rainwater from school buildings to the extent that is practical. Both harvested rainwater and gravity water are unsafe to drink, so our schools’ water systems will also have filtration, chlorination, and ultraviolet treatment. The outreach schools will have varied combinations of water sources.

We are providing hollow-fiber filters from the Ugandan Water Project to our schools and the outreach schools, enabling the schools to supply clean and clear drinking water that does not require boiling. In 2024, we provided water filters for Arlington Junior School (AJS) and Matuwa Junior Schools (MJS) and the two Beatrice Tierney Health Clinics. Both clinics have seen dramatic reductions in gastrointestinal diseases among children. We also provided water filters to the Bulobi School and Matuwa Primary School (local government schools near our own junior schools). We worked with Eastern Umbrella to repair the water connection for the Bulobi School, so that it now has water from both gravity water and rainwater sources.

In 2024, we connected both Hawthorne-Scribner High School (HSHS) and AJS to the Eastern Umbrella gravity water system and built a hybrid gravity water/rainwater system at HSHS. This system has a capacity of 60,000 liters of filtered portable water and about 70,000 liters of chlorinated rainwater. We are currently in the final phases of testing for the first stage of the system, making the water portable, meaning that it is safe for brushing teeth and other uses, but not for drinking. By the end of December, we will install the second stage, making the water potable for drinking and washing dishes in the kitchen.

At HSHS, pumps move the rainwater from the rainwater aggregation area to the water treatment plant at the top of the hill. The water treatment plant filters all available rainwater to make it portable. When the system has exhausted available rainwater, it begins to draw and filter gravity water, continuing until it fills a 60,000 liter galvanized steel tank. This portable water flows to all school buildings using gravity. In the first phase, only the water in the kitchen will be safe for drinking, but we expect to install smaller capacity secondary treatment (1,000 liters) to the potable stage in the classroom buildings, dormitories, and other water access points.

In December, we are replacing the rusted iron roof of AJS and installing durable gutters so that we can safely harvest rainwater from it, to vastly increase the amount of clean water available to students and staff.

Easy access to clean water will do more than dramatically improve health and reduce reliance on firewood and charcoal, it will also give students more time to focus on school and just be kids.

The need for water does not stop here.

With your help, in 2025, we hope to complete the water systems for both of our junior schools and clinics.

AJS will have a hybrid water system like that at HSHS, but it will have a slightly smaller capacity, 45,000 liters of portable water, approximately 40,000 liters of rainwater and 1,000 liter tanks of potable water for both the school and the Beatrice Tierney Bumwalukani clinic.

The goal for Matuwa is a two-phased system that will provide water not only for MJS and the Beatrice Tierney Bupoto clinic in Matuwa, but for the Matuwa Primary School, and the Matuwa community. We plan to design this infrastructure with Eastern Umbrella so that, in its second phase, it provides access to portable water that also reaches Bupoto.

We will also provide water filters for more of the outreach schools and repair or provide rainwater harvesting tanks, prioritizing schools with critical water needs.

Please also consider asking your employer, place of worship, or corporations to match your contributions or become partners with REACH for Uganda.

If you would like to connect for more information, please email us at info@reachforuganda.org.