Community Engagement at Bukobero
On March 11-13, 2022, the long-awaited Community Engagement Process with brick making training was held in the Bukobero community!
Originally planned to be done in coordination with Friendly Water for the World (FW), COVID-19 prevented their team from traveling from Kenya to Uganda for the training. Not to be discouraged, we sent a team to Kenya. With materials we received from Village Reach, another non-profit working in East Africa, and FW, our amazing team organized their own Community Engagement Process.
And, we were featured on Uganda TV! See below for highlights.
East Uganda TV Coverage
The Bukobero CBO (Community Based Organization) made sure to invite the Bududa District Chairperson and other local council members to the Community Engagement Process. The Chairperson, in turn, invited TV East Uganda and we were featured in the news coverage!
Click on the image to the right to see the report. Coverage of Bukobero begins at 4:40 and continues to 9:55 minutes.
Community members are interviewed. You won’t be able to understand, but if you listen carefully will hear the words “Bududa”, “Bukobero”, and “Health Center”. And, our own David Wamuwaya is interviewed at the site at the end!
Community Engagement and Brick Making Training
A grant from Seattle’s University District Rotary Club enabled the CBO to conduct the Community Engagement Process and Brick Making Training. The Community Engagement helps the community determine what its goals and aspirations are and what assets they have, or can develop, to achieve them. It focuses on collaboration, self-empowerment, and leadership.
The Rotary grant also allowed the community to purchase two brick making machines which make compressed, interlocking bricks, both curved and straight. These bricks are environmentally friendly and, as you can see, the machines can be used by both men and women! These machines will allow the community to build stronger houses and create a business to sell bricks.
A follow-up training will be held soon so the community can learn to make water cisterns from the bricks. This will help reduce the need for women and girls to fetch and carry water up and down the steep hills of Bududa to their homes.
YOUR HELP IS NEEDED!
We have an opportunity to purchase more land next to the health center site. Three years ago, we purchased the only land available but our site is small. Now, more land is available.
$5,000 will enable us to purchase this land. With this extra land, we will have much more flexibility in our site planning and have extra space for future needs.
Anything you can give would make a difference!
Water System Installation
Great progress has been made installing the water system for the health center! Approximately 700 meters of trenching have been dug through difficult terrain from the natural spring source to the building site.
The picture to the right illustrates the difficulty of the work. These boulders along the route have to be broken up by hand to make room for the pipeline. We have a dedicated group of about 80 volunteers, both men and women, who have been helping make this possible.
The water system will have three 10,000 gallon reserve tanks along the pipeline and multiple community access points. The access points will provide clean water, uncontaminated by runoff from agricultural fields, to the community.
The tanks, pipeline, fittings, and other materials are ordered and will be delivered in the next few days.
Last but not least!
We are so happy to share the news that the Health Centre was awarded a $10,000 solar grant from KiloWatts for Humanity!
KiloWatts for Humanity has been our partner for three years. Their “Microgrid Team” is working closely with us to design our solar system.
Thank you so much, KWH
