The Uganda Water Project addresses the clean drinking water needs of those living in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in Northern Uganda. More than two million people from Sudan, Kenya, and Uganda live in these IDP camps, some of whom have lived there for 20 years. The lack of access to clean water and extremely poor sanitation is a day-to-day reality in the camps. People are also suffering from continuous dependency on aid and are in need of practical skills to begin supporting themselves. The Uganda Water Project provides access to clean drinking water in the IDP camps via the implementation of biosand filters and rainwater harvesting tanks (made of compressed earth bricks). The project also provides sanitation and hygiene education to improve and maintain health, and a holistic community development program that trains the people living in the camps in appropriate technologies that they can in turn use when the time comes to re-establish themselves. The Uganda Water Project began in February 2008, and is implemented at the point of need through a partnership with Connect Africa.
Located west of Kenya in Eastern Africa, Uganda occupies an area slightly smaller than the state of Oregon. Since its first free election in 1990, the Ugandan government has enacted measures to stabilize Uganda’s economy, including currency reform, price increases on petroleum products, and wage increases for civil services. Uganda is home to native populations of chimpanzees and gorillas and boasts its continent’s highest mountain range, the Mountains of the Moon. The country’s Northern provinces are recovering from a devastating civil war between government forces and the rebel group Lord’s Resistance Army.
