I have been in Uganda for a month now – we have around 250 children aged 3-10 attending our Ruhanga Development Nursery & Primary School. Nursery School is registered and Primary almost completed all the required sections for registration

Most children have a uniform – thanks to kind donations of unwanted items from UK schools (black/navy skirts or pinafores, white shirts or poloshirts, black or dark grey shorts and royal or navy sweaters – proudly displaying a variety of different UK school badges – we leave those on for photos – but the shirts have our own RDNPS badge sewn on

Long sleeves shortened and trousers are cut to shorts by our resident sewing lady.

One young volunteer who recently left after staying  3 months put almost £5,000 of his own money & what he collected  from friends and family and hired large machinery to grade and level out the large school playing fields – formally it was impossible to play games etc – in another few weeks the grass we planted will have completely covered the area and they will be able to host football matches and so on

We have 7 classrooms completed and two more still need windows doors plastering and floors rendered for use at end of  January. All would like glass in the windows but that is not top of the priority list,

A second toilet block needs to be completed – the pit and down part is all done – ready for walls and roof.

Registration people said we also have to have a bigger headmaster /office room and we need more storage for games equipment

The water project is finished – we have somewhere approaching 20 taps in place and water at three schools and many hundreds of people are already benefitting

Now others on the edge of our area are requesting taps – and I am getting quotation – as there is plenty of water to go further afield.

At the Lodge itself – for those who may contemplate a visit – we have FLUSH TOILETS now we have water.

Volunteering is not just for Gap years – I am well past pension age as are a number of our other visitors and the cost of just £10 per day for all meals and accommodation  makes it an affordable possibility for a holiday with a difference

Older visitors also can enjoy a short safari to Queen Elizabeth national Park for an extra £200 – or even go on a gorilla trek if you are reasonably fit.

Please join us on the ‘Walk for Water’ in Ruhanga on 3rd December 2011 from 10:00am.

Funds are being raised to continue with the installation of a new pipeline to supply fresh mountain water to the villagers of Ruhanga, in SW Uganda. Participants are invited to take the guided walk to the source of the water located in the beautiful hills above the village, and see some of the construction already completed.

After this 1-2hour hike there will be a BBQ at Ruhanga Community Development School, with the chance to meet local villagers and school children who will benefit from the pipeline once it is completed.

The walk is organized by UK registered charity ‘Let Them Help Themselves Out of Poverty’, both to raise money and awareness of the great distance folk in Ruhanga have to travel to access clean water.

In June 2011 I and some of volunteers went out to Uganda and covered this trail and you can see how we got on in these two video clips

1. Bottled water (min 1litre)

2. Walking stick or pole if you are at all unsteady on rough ground

3. Camera to remember the fantastic views!

4. Camping facilities will be provided in the school grounds

5.A good pair of Walking boots

6. sun lotion

Or visit their website directly:

http://lethemhelpthemselves.eventbrite.com/

Like most folk that grew up in rural Uganda/Africa we didn’t have running water, you can read about by personal story here .  My friends and I have therefore dedicated the last 2 years to bringing clean water Ruhanga a village in SW Uganda  and work finally got under way in January of this year.

Our task was to pipe water from the hills above the village  to the valley where the local school we founded is as well install two taps in the village so at least 10,000 people in the village could have access to clean water.  You can follow that journey in  this post. It was all hands on board as the community got behind the project by signing the contract with the water engineers, supervising the contractors and digging the trenches were the pipes would go.

All of that seems like a distant memory!

School Children turn on the taps

Water finally arrived at the Ruhanga community Project School and as you can see the children were very keen to try it out themselves

Clean water supply to Volunteer accommodation

Our work is supported by a large number of volunteers who travel from all over the world to come and spend time and the village and up until now the women in the village have had to carry water on their heads for use at the volunteer accommodation . This will no longer the case as the accommodation has its own water supply

The first tap in the village

Finally one of the taps for the supply of clean water to the village is also up and the locals were quick to take advantage of this.

We are not quite done! In order to cover the entire village we need to install another tap. We cannot tap into the current water source so we have to find another stream up in the hills, dig trenches, lay some pipes  and bring the water to the valley. We therefore still need your support to achieve this and if you can get to Uganda on 3 December 2011 please join us on the Walk 4 Water Campaign  http://www.lethemhelpthemselves.org/walk-for-water

This is a typical day for a woman in Ruhanga SW Uganda. This woman had just finished working on the land when we came across her. Notice that she has one child in hand another on her back, a 20 litter jerry can of water as well as a basket of vegetables.

Notice too that she is smiling in spite of her circumstances

How would you cope if you had to swap places with her?

This is the journey of the search for clean water in Ruhanga a pretty village in SW Uganda, For a wider  selection of photos from our Walk for Clean Water check out Ethnic Supplies facebook page

This is the source of water and as you can see it is not ideal for human consumption

Sadly the community has no choice to but use this water and the task of water collection is left to the children in the village. They fill up the jerrycans  which they then carry on their heads

At the front of this photo is the stream(near the stones) that can supply clean water to the community in the valley below

George chair of the local community based organisation show us the route where the pipes were due to be laid

Remember her?  Yes that is Ann our project coordinator trying out the newly piped water

This is the first step in the water storage system- we really are nearly there

This is the space set aside for the next storage tank before the water can get village below. We need to raise #3000 to get the water from here to the point where folk in the community can actually turn on the tap.

Please help us to the last step by making a donation

We have been fund raising for clean water for sometime now and we are nearly there. As you can see from this photograph digging for clean water is currently under way. The community has joined in and are doing most of the work themselves

Digging for Clean water

But they still need our help to pay for the work that they cannot do themselves and to that end we are inviting you to join us for a sponsored walk in VIRGINIA WATER SURREY on 17th APRIL 2011 AT 10:00AM the meeting point is at VIRGINIA WATER LAKE and the contact person is HILARY BROWELL

With our help the community will be able to have a glass of clean water each day, something we take for granted together we can make this happen. so come and have a walk around the beautiful lake in Virgina Water with us, bring a friend, the kids, bring your partner, your dog and most of all bring a picnic

If you are unable to join us but want to help please  make a donation below

A very Happy New year to you all our supporters

The year 2009 was a very busy one for us at our project in SW Uganda we saw an increase in overseas volunteers and this enabled us to forge ahead with the provision of a nursery school in the village.

volunteers at Ruhanga community project SW Uganda

For reasons that we do not entirely understand children within the Ruhanga community do not start school until they are 7 years old. We felt that this situation was not ideal and therefore embarked on a journey to provide nursery school facilities.

unfinished school building

The first of the buildings was completed in 2008 and the children settled in but it was not enough to meet the needs of the village and as you can see we started off with no chairs or desks for the children.

ruhanga community proejct nursery school children

We have therefore decided to run a raffle this spring to raise money to provide classroom furniture as well finish off the second school buidling. This will enable the children to have more room to do their work

This is where we are so far so we need your help to finish this work off

unfinished school Ruhanga SW Uganda

School latrine

Jordan one of our service users

As well as the nursery school work continued on the craft centre to provide a space from which the women can work.

half finished craft centre

The raffle includes some amazing prizes such as a meal out, a reflexology session, Unusual African gifts, a weekend break etc, to buy your ticket and be in with a chance to win one of these amazing prizes please get in touch http://lethemhelpthemselves.org/contact

Or if you have something that could be included in the prizes please get in touch

If you do not wish to take part in the raffle but would like to support our work please make a donation

Here is Moses, one of the schoolchildren at Ruhanga, who will benefit from a clean water supply in his village.