Kirungu, Uganda

Completed: August 2024
Serves: A community of 311 adults, plus a school with an enrollment of 497 students from the surrounding area

Students and teachers would at times walk three miles each way to collect water. The new well is right on the school grounds.

“Thank you very much, thank you very much, thank you so very much, dear donors! ... These children have been leaving school at around 8 in the morning hours to look for water. Unfortunately, they used to come back to school at 10 A.M., not because they were just playing on the way, but because of the long distances they had to walk in search of water. This means that by the time they came back to school from those far-off water collection sources, all the morning lessons had been missed.

“For security purposes, even the teachers themselves had to follow them, walking alongside these students to those water collection sites, implying that some classes that were not involved in fetching water that particular day had no teachers as well to cover their learning sessions. Teachers were at the ponds accompanying students. To make matters worse, even the water itself being collected is from ponds, unfit for human consumption, as these pond waters are muddy and shared between people and animals! 

“... Thank you very, very much dear donors. You cannot imagine how you have made my leadership work easier; it is only God who can reveal that to you.”

— Madam Noeline, head teacher St. Kizito Kirungu Primary School