Seriously, maybe I need to go away more often because just in the time I was on my trip, we raised nearly $4000 on DonorSee!
FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS! Wow. I’m blown away!
What did you accomplish?
blackboards for the new Wells of Hope Primary building
a substantial start on part 1 of desks and chairs for the building
orphan Miriam’s medical care after she was hit by a boda
almost 60% of the transportation for Kellen to her father’s burial
medical care for teen mom Mabel’s two sick children
a metal crutch for Emmanuel, who was born with one leg
help for Clare, the teen mom living in the chicken coop
an exit package for teen mom Gloria, to set her up for independence
restocking food for our teen girls
mosquito nets for 25 students in Skills for Life
an emergency intake for 15-year-old pregnant teen Sylvia
a 4-bed dormitory for homeless students in Skills for Life
medical treatment for Jen’s UTI
Y’all, I was only gone 2 1/2 weeks! THIS.IS.AMAZING!!
Your support while I was gone, beyond this amazing giving, was so appreciated. I got emails and messages on social media, and it was so encouraging. Because it’s hard over there…
Great. But hard. Thanks to all of you, the trip was a success in every way. I really can’t thank you enough!
Webele nyo!
Jennings
PS Becoming a monthly supporter is a GREAT way to help our work! As little as $10 a month makes an impact — $10 can provide food for a teen mom and her child for a week! Just click the button to get started —>
I leave tonight (Wednesday) at 11:30pm. I’ll check out of the hotel at 10:30 in the morning, grab some of my son’s favorate Kamulali hot sauce, spend several hours at the office, and then go on to Entebbe and the airport. There’s a good lounge in EBB, and honestly, what else is there to do when you’re just sitting around anxious to be on your way?!
The trip has been GREAT. Really great.
After 2+ years away thanks to the pandemic response, I am thrilled to see in person all that we — and YOU — have built.
The Touch the Slum compound is thriving, with 12 residents, 60 students, a clinic, a daycare, 20 staff, and so much enthusiasm.
The Literacy class went even better than we expected, and those girls are ready to sit in on vocational classes and get a feel for what they’ll be doing next term.
Our photography and videography team — which started as a vocational class, too — has been producing the really great work we use in social media and on DonorSee. Their short film was part of the Ugandan Film Festival. They’re also getting outside gigs, and are now “influencers” on TikTok and getting paid just to mention businesses!
We’re reaching even more teens with Teen Talk and Turning Point each week.
And out west, schools are back in session FINALLY, and the students are doing well. The school building at Wells of Hope Primary in Rwakobo Village is almost usable. We’re going to put an ecobrick water tank at Hopeland Primary to help them have enough — and free — water.
Spending time with all the wonderful people we’ve been able to gather to Ten Eighteen Uganda, Touch the Slum, and the two schools has been inspiring and motivating. I’m headed back with renewed energy (okay, maybe renewed AFTER I get over jet lag!).
I’ve been really grateful that we’ve video chats and messaging over the last two years. But there is nothing like sharing meals, walking the slum or village, laughing, chatting, and watching in person. The former will let me come once a year and still be 100% “in the know.” The latter lets me truly KNOW. I’m grateful!
Blessings,
Jennings
PS. We have 2 projects up on DonorSee to allow the Wells of Hope building to open – one is for floors and blackboards, the other for desks and chairs (part 1). (That one is almost 20% funded already.) We’d so appreciate your support to move the kids from the overcrowded mud-and-stick classes to the spacious new ones as soon as possible!
Emmanuel (Manuel for short) is in Primary 3 at Wells of Hope, and so happy that school started back in January after nearly two years of closures. He loves running around, playing football, and being a regular kid.
There’s just one difference: Manuel has only one leg.
He was born this way, and watching him move you would never really connect that one of his “legs” is actually a crutch. He uses that crutch as easily and naturally as can be — it’s pretty amazing.
But Manuel’s crutches have always been made out of wood, and as a typical, active boy, that wood breaks. When that happens, Manuel can spend a week out of school while another one is located, and funds figured out.
This means he not only loses a valuable week of education and food, he also has no means of movement outside sitting on his bum and scooting around. His family couldn’t afford a wheelchair, but also, his home and the surrounding village aren’t really places a wheelchair can go easily. So he waits.
We have a project up on DonorSee to buy Manuel a metal crutch, so he can play football and run to his heart’s content. We’d love your help to give this amazing kid an amazing gift.
After our “fun with food” at Hopeland School last Wednesday, we spent Thursday out at Rwakobo Village and Wells of Hope School. This photo is the home of one of the parents from the school, who has 3 kids there.
This village is, essentially, “a refugee camp without the UN.” (Per Gilbert, the Assistant Director at the school.) It was planted inside the then newly formed Lake Mburo National Park forty years ago, when the government needed something to do with refugees from the Rwandan genocide. They put them in the middle of this game park with no well, no clinic, no school, and lots of rules. That was pretty much the last time the government has done anything for the people there.
Anyway, we combined our planned 2-day visit into one because Director Gideon’s wife was suffering terribly with gall stones and they were going to have to go to Kampala on Friday. It meant a long day, a 2 mile walk, a lot of sun, and a lot of these kinds of houses.
We toured the school, which has come a long way since our last visit, with one real brick building in service and a second nearing completion. (DonorSee project on the way for the floors and blackboards soon!) There are 340 students in buildings that would legitimately hold 150, but it’s pretty hard to turn them away.
In the West, this classroom would hold *maybe* 10 students, with desks and chairs. There are 40+ children in it now. All the old mud and stick classrooms look like this, so a move to the new building will be a huge help.
I’m a huge fascination out in Rwakobo — a mzungu is rare out there! So I wore my hair up, long sleeves (to cover up my tattoos which caused MUCH interest last visit!), and long pants. Still, they all wanted to touch my hands or feet, and kept surging forward to be ever-closer to us. haha It was a bit intense, but I always love to visit them.
It’s Sunday and I leave in THREE DAYS! Thank you all for your encouragement and support while I’ve been gone. We’ve funded a lot of DonorSee projects over the last two weeks, so THANK YOU!
Thanks to our generous donors, with the administrative support from Equal Aqua Uganda, and construction by The Ichupa Upcycle Project , our first ecobrick water tank is up and running with harvested rainwater!
Check out this video for the whole story:
Now, the kids at Wells of Hope School AND the residents of Rwakobo Village have access to safe water!
WHAT’S NEXT?
This was the kick-off project for our WASH Campaign. Our 2021 goals are ambitious – but that’s good, right?
Ecobrick Water Tanks
Pit Latrines with Handwashing Stations
Deep Water Well
Gideon, school Director, checks out the growing tank
Ten Eighteen has 3 missions in Uganda: vulnerable girls and teen moms, water/sanitation/hygiene for Rwakobo, and food for three schools. In short, FOOD, WATER, SHELTER, AND EDUCATION.
It’s supporters like you, and our partners in Uganda, that allow us to accomplish this big mission, one small step at a time. We are so thankful!!
Yesterday was the official KICK OFF of our multi-year WASH Campaign. A WASH Campaign brings water access, sanitation, and hygiene to a community — and we are kicking off with a 10,000 liter water tank made of upcycled ecobricks for Wells of Hope School in Rwakobo Village.
Created in partnership with Equal Aqua Uganda, the Ichupa Upcycle Project, and Celebration Tabernacle Church in Mbarara, this project is exciting in so many ways!
It brings ample clean water to the students and staff at Wells of Hope School for washing, cooking, and (with purification like boiling) drinking.
It shows our commitment to this extremely poor and isolated village of nearly 3,000.
It involves the students and community by showing them how to fill the bottles with sand and use them to construct a tank.
It is a step towards a culture of upcycling and recycling the enormous amount of plastic waste in Uganda.
Equal Aqua will also be providing some Skills classes to the community.
We will have more updates, and are so thankful to YOU for your donations that have been this possible!
Almost exactly a year ago (March 12, 2020), we built a small cistern at Wells of Hope School in Rwakobo Village. Nearly 40 kids were out of school with typhoid due to contaminated water, we didn’t have the funds for a well — but we DID have the funds for a small 200-liter tank that would at least provide cleaner (and on-site) water for hand washing and cooking.
Almost as soon as the work was finished, the Covid19 lockdowns started. I don’t know if the community was able to use this small bit of clean water during that time, but I hope so. It’s still there, and will still be collecting water for the BACK TO SCHOOL students. (School officially started back on March 1!)
BUT NOW…
10,000 liters!
Starting on Monday, March 8, Equal Aqua Uganda will be building a new additional tank holding 10,000 liters of rainwater captured from the roof of the new school building! We’ve written about ecobricks before… They’re made using recycled plastic bottles, filled with sand, and cemented into a large structure to give it strength. The tanks have spigots at the bottom, are fed with rainwater, and covered to prevent contamination.
While technically, that small 200-liter tank was the (unofficial) start of our WASH Campaign for Rwakobo Village, THIS TANK is the official kick-off of a multi-year, ambitious plan to bring tanks, wells, new pit latrines, handwashing facilities, and a hygiene campaign to this village.
OUR GOAL FOR 2021: 1 DEEP WATER WELL 2 PIT LATRINES 3 ECOBRICK WATER TANKS
Access to clean water and sanitation is the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 6: “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.”
In Rwakobo Village, this goal is 100% a dream right now.
BUT THANKS TO YOU, WE’RE GETTING STARTED NEXT WEEK!
Today we welcome Gideon, Director of Hopeland and Wells of Hope Schools, and our liaison to Rwakobo Village. I’ve known Gideon for about ten years when he was a teacher/tutor at Father’s House in Kampala. We’ve been working together on the schools since May 2019, when my bakery began a Pound for Pound program to provide food for Hopeland School and the Arise Africa Babies Home. I’m so glad to have a chance to chat with him about Rwakobo Village!
J: When and how did the village at Rwakobo come to your attention?
G: We visited it in 2018 when our church [Celebration Tabernacle Church in Mbarara] was doing outreaches to the poorest and most needy areas in our region.
J. What was the first thing Celebration Tabernacle did in the village?
G: Together, the church fed the hungry, built a few mud houses with iron sheets for those who slept in grass huts or were basically homeless, and talked to the parents about the dangers of forced child marriages and other associated vices.
J: How many people live in Rwakobo Village?
G: Almost 3,000 now!
J: What is life like for those living there?
G: They live hand to mouth, well below the poverty line [so below $2 per day]. They hardly have any clean water, getting food is a struggle, and they have no health facilities so they depend on herbs for the treatment of illnesses.
J: What impact has the school made on the lives of the villagers?
G: They have seen the importance of education! Forced early marriages have been reduced, as well as the behaviors associated with that [like abuse, early pregnancy and related complications]. The value of girls has been resurrected!
J: How will the new school building and the reopening of the school after the Covid lockdown affect the children who attend Wells of Hope?
G: Their lives were being threatened over the last year! Not only were schools closed, but churches were also closed so they began to lose hope. They fell back in their educational achievements [school had only just started its third-ever term], and were giving up! The news of the opening will be amazing to them!
J: What impact did the Covid lockdowns and the loss of the full school year have on the children. What negative effects did you see during the last year, and what negative impacts do you anticipate because of the “lost year?”
G: Some children were starving and malnourished. Some were abandoned by their parents in their houses and left alone. Others were forced into early marriage, early pregnancy, and some girls were exchanged for food. The girls who were forced into marriage will not be able to return to school [Wells of Hope only goes to Primary 6]. We also anticipate that the little tuition some parents were able to pay will be reduced, as the parents have lost what incomes they had during the pandemic. Additionally, the families had to eat any seeds that they were saving for planting after the rainy season, so there is little income on the horizon.
J: What difference would having access to clean water, as well as good sanitation and hygiene, have on the school and village?
G: If the village didn’t have to rely on seasonal wells [ponds] and had clean water, the incidence of disease and illness would be greatly reduced! Waterborne illness is one of the biggest problems in the village and the school and accounts for many lost days of class. Diarrhea kills many children in the village. Handwashing stations and clean pit latrines would also help a lot!
J: What is the greatest need in Rwakobo Village?
G: A bigger school so all the children can attend, and funds to pay the staff. Clean water and water easily available for washing. And improved homes for the families who live in grass huts or mud homes.
J: Thank you so much for all your work in this village — and for introducing us to it last year! We can’t wait to get back there as soon as Covid allows!
The road through Lake Mburo National Park to Rwakobo Village
The village at Rwakobo Rock, which we call Rwakobo Village but which doesn’t seem to have a formal name, is about 10km inside Lake Mburo National Park. It was founded as a place to relocate Rwandan refugees, and (apparently) forgotten. While there is another village inside that park that seems to have services, a decent (for a Ugandan village) road, and houses the employees of the various safari lodges, Rwakobo Village is spread out and isolated — by geography, and by culture.
Their isolation has led to an extremely high rate of HIV/AIDS and STDs. Syphilis, in particular, seems to be rampant and largely untreated. No hospice or other medical outreach serves the village. Water-borne diseases such as typhoid, as well as malaria and illnesses related to poor hygiene, are leading causes of sickness and death.
WHAT IS A WASH CAMPAIGN?
WASH = Water Access, Sanitation, and Hygiene
WATER IS THE FIRST URGENT NEED
But at the same time, Wells of Hope School and Celebration Tabernacle Church outreach are teaching best hygiene practices. Since almost half of people in Rwakobo Village practice open defecation (going to the bathroom outside), there is a great need for education and construction of safe pit latrines for the villagers as well. All of these things are interconnected and vital for health and safety of those living in this village.
Inside a round house in Rwakobo Village
THIS TYPE OF CAMPAIGN IS A MARATHON NOT A SPRINT!
We have been working in Uganda since 2009, and are committed to this project for the long haul. Just before the school closings and lockdown last year, Ten Eighteen Uganda built a kitchen and a small cistern — sufficient for daily use — at Wells of Hope School. Thanks to a generous donor, we now have the funds to install a 7,000 liter eco-brick tank at the new school building. Since Equal Aqua Uganda will be traveling several hundred kilometers from their usual area, we are hoping to raise money for at least one 10,000 liter tank for the village to be built at the same time.
But what are the long term goals in this WASH Campaign?
At least 12 ten-thousand gallon tanks spread throughout the village, to catch rainwater that can be used for washing, cooking, and drinking (with purification techniques such as boiling).
One deep-water well installed by the end of 2022, and four by the end of 2025.
Conduct a village-wide hygiene campaign in 2021 in collaboration with Celebration Tabernacle Church and Wells of Hope School, to teach the importance of using best hygiene practices such as frequent handwashing, especially after defecation.
Construct pit latrines in the community in collaboration with Celebration Tabernacle Church.
If you’d like to donate to our Clean Water for Rwakobo campaign,we’d love to have you partner with us to effect meaningful and lasting change in this devastatingly poor community. 100% of your donations go to the project! And we’d love your thoughts, comments, and prayers as we tackle this job — we can’t do it, but God can accomplish it!
Clean water comes pouring out, ready for drinking, washing your hands, filling a pot, doing the laundry.
We really don’t even think about it.
But for the villagers in Rwakobo, there is no tap. There are no pipes. No wells. No clean water.
This is a “seasonal well.” It, and the others used by the 2,700 villagers, are natural or man-made depressions in the ground, filled by rainwater. Trenches dug in red dirt send more water into the stagnant pond.
Animals that live inside the Lake Mburo National Park use these “wells” (shallow ponds) also. They drink from them, cool off in them, use them to sneak up on prey. They defecate in and around them, and along the trenches where the rainwater flows.
The wells aren’t even very close to the village, meaning that they walk — mostly children — a mile or more to fill one or two jerry cans with filthy water, then return to their homes. The water is used for everything we use water for: cooking, washing clothes, sponge bathing, drinking.
t’s no wonder that water and feces born diseases that cause diarrhea are rampant.
DIARRHEA IS THE LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH OF CHILDREN UNDER 5 IN UGANDA…
WHAT ARE WE DOING TO HELP?
While our ultimate goal is to be able to have deep water wells to serve the village, our first step is to install Eco-Brick tanks. We have been able to secure funds for a 7,000 liter tank for the Wells of Hope School (thanks to a generous donation!), which will allow the children to have clean water for washing and cooking, and drinking with purification techniques. The children are being taught basic hygiene at the same time, so that hand washing with soap becomes second nature.
WE WANT TO FUND AT LEAST ONE 10,000 LITER TANK FOR THE VILLAGE IN FEBRUARY!
We are partnering with Equal Aqua Uganda, a UK/UG partnership, to build these tanks. Equal Aqua has been working in Eastern Uganda since its founding last year, but have agreed to travel to Rwakobo Village for this project. We would love to take advantage of this by installing more than one tank!
Eco-bricks are made by recycling plastic drink bottles, packing them with sand, and re-capping them to form a solid brick. They are then cemented into the structure, creating a stable tank to hold much more water than a cement-only tank would hold. The tank is filled with rainwater from the roof, a top keeps the tank clean, and a spigot at the bottom allows for the water to be drawn off and used.
A 7,000 LITER TANK COSTS $735, AND A 10,000 LITER TANK COSTS $1150
WE CAN DO IT! With your help, we can raise the money to kick off the WASH project in Rwakobo Village.
WASH = WATER ACCESS, SANITATION, & HYGIENE
We can save lives, and IMPROVE the lives of these extremely impoverished people.
