Published on: Aug 9, 2014
Hundreds of villagers in Uyogo can now drink fresh, clean water thanks to our work. KUFL Chair Peter Fisher recently visited Uyogo, in the Tabora District of Tanzania, with his wife Ann to take a look at this latest project.
He said: “The villagers were desperately short of water so we raised £7,000 which helped finance the drilling of a 50m bore hole. I was thrilled when I got there and saw the water pump working.
“We walked about a kilometre from the village along dusty tracks and saw people pumping the water by a palm tree. It’s usually women and children who fetch it and they did this about four times a day.”
There are about 4,000 people living in the village but only a few hundred of them have access to the pump.
As well as financing clean, safe water, the friendship link has also built two new nurses’ houses and new classrooms, which they plan to dedicate to the late Eric Deal, a founder member of the group.
We also sponsored the village nurse, Joyce Ongati, to study at the University of Dar es Salaam to upgrade her qualification to a doctor. Joyce successfully graduated after 5 years’ study in 2017.
Peter Fisher said: “We operate on a partnership basis and we give a ‘hand up’ to the Uyogo community rather than a ‘hand out’. The villagers make bricks and build the clinic buildings, classrooms and houses but we supply money for the materials such as roof sheets and cement. The Tanzanian government then pays the teachers’ salaries, so we all work together. We have regular communication with Uyogo to check our money is being spent wisely and from time to time we visit to see for ourselves. Our travel expenses are all self-funded.”
Uyogo is located in a dry area of Tanzania and water can be a problem: lack of water in the dry season, too much water flooding the road to the nearest town, Urambo, and making it impassable in the rainy season. KUFL has funded the building of two rainwater harvesting tanks in Uyogo, collecting rainwater from the roof gutters of the primary school and the Dispensary, so it can be stored and used in dry times. The rainwater harvesting tanks are built of thin ferro-concrete walls, are easy to maintain and work extremely well to alleviate water problems in the dry season.
To solve the problem of too much water washing away vital access roads to market in the rainy season, KUFL and Uyogo villagers built two culverts under the main road to Urambo. These are sturdy and are working well (last viewed by KUFL Chair Kit Lawry in October 2019).
