January 7, 2012
UPDATE (February 3, 2012): The water project reached its initial goal of $5,500! This will help build the initial infrastructure, but your contributions are still needed for plumbing, drainage, and other infrastructure costs. Thank you everyone who made this project possible! To contribute to this important project, follow the link below.
Minerva Fellows Brendan Kinnane and Mark O'Shea are embarking on a project to help address water needs at the clinic and around the community. The pair has carefully worked with peer health clinics, engineers from Uganda and the United States, the Engeye Board of Directors, and the clinic staff to come up with a plan to help update Engeye's water infrastructure. Now we need your help to make all of their hard work become a reality (click below to donate)!
Ddegeya Village, like almost all villages in rural Uganda, operates without the basic resource of running water. Yet everyone – men and women, young and old, Muslims, Christians, the rich, and the poor – shares a common reliance on water, each and every day. The Engeye Health Clinic is no exception. The clinic and its residents and staff currently draw from two plastic cisterns that store domestically collected rainwater for cooking, bathing, cleaning, etc. – the vitals of daily life and operation. Although the current tanks help supply the clinic, they struggle to meet the demands of water usage throughout the year. During the height of the dry seasons, staff members must fetch water from the local borehole or the clinic must pay for such a service. For this initial reason, the call for a larger tank that could provide water for all present and future needs was heard.
The call for a greater and more sophisticated water supply was echoed loudly as future needs and goals for the clinic were considered. Aspirations to board patients, perform surgery, offer dental care, and build a maternity ward (for deliveries and emergency caesarean sections) all depend on a reliable source of running water. By introducing running water to Engeye Health Clinic, such never-before-offered medical services can be provided to the people in this region. Thus, the Engeye Water Project took form, its aim being to benefit both the health clinic and thousands of patients it serves annually by providing an abundant supply of clean, running water.
The project includes the following components: a rainwater harvesting system, a 50,000 liter belowground water tank, a foot pump and a gravity pressure plumbing system. The tank design and project logistics have been reviewed and approved by several sources and professionals, including the Engineers Without Borders team from MIT and an experienced local builder-engineer (who built the nearly identical system after which the Engeye Water Project is modeled). A 2012 fundraising effort has been launched to make the water project a reality this spring. The goal is to raise $3500 in the next month and half and begin construction by the end of February ($2,000 has already been contributed by private donors). Please help us to reach this goal and to bring running water to Engeye Health Clinic and the broader community it serves by donating below.
Thank you again for your time and support!
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Donate directly to the water project via credit card, e-check, or PayPal account! |
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