Water Access, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH) Project

Things have been picking up at Mpoma!

In the past month, the Mpoma team had begun conducting WASH trainings at our new partner school-- St. Jude Secondary School in Katoogo village! This is the first secondary school Mpoma has worked with, and we are quite excited to be widening our reach.

One of the Water User Committees in Waluga village has been making great progress with their WASH trainings! This week they have had their second community-wide WASH training in two months, and the results are already evident. In the past month, five new handwashing stations have been set up throughout the community, latrines have become noticeably cleaner, and village members have been better about cleaning their water vessels.

The Mpoma team has also found a new site for a water source-- the location is the site of Mpoma’s new poultry project, funded by a grant from GoCampaign. The project is located at the owner of Mpoma’s house, where most boarding students spend their vacations from school. This water source will both help the project’s success (the proceeds of which go toward paying Johnson Nkosi’s teacher salaries), as well as serve more rural community members.

Last but not least, the GROW team has officially booked their flights to Uganda. They will be leaving on June 11th to begin their internships at Mpoma!

As we begin Spring quarter, we are beginning the final push in our fundraising efforts in order to make our commitment. It’s a lot of work, but we are confident we will get there!

February was an exciting month for Mpoma!

Over the past few weeks, Peter Wandera, the manager of Mpoma Community HIV/AIDS Initiative, finished and sent out this year’s Annual Report. The document includes updates and highlights from 2015 of Mpoma’s various projects, including Johnson Nkosi Memorial Primary School and our WASH project. This year’s Annual Report also delineates a few key themes that the WASH project will be focusing on in 2016:

1. Hand-washing with soap

2. Safe feces disposal (with emphasis on the reduction of open defecation)

3. Safe drinking water (using the Safe Water Chain)

4. Personal hygiene for boys and girls (with emphasis on menstrual hygiene for the girls)

While these themes have always been central to the WASH project, this year we are really working to actively promote behavioral change, rather than taking a more passive educational approach.

Another exciting announcement from February: our new GROW team has officially begun training for their on-site work this summer! They attended a training institute hosted by the GlobeMed Global Headquarters in Chicago, and are very excited to assume their new roles in our partnership.

Lastly, due to our GlobeMed chapter’s outstanding fundraising efforts, we managed to send Mpoma our first wire transfer last week! We send our annual commitment-- $11,000 for the 2015-2016 school year-- in two installments. In the past, our February installment has been around $4,000, but this year we sent Mpoma $6,988! This is an incredible accomplishment, and hopefully a good sign that we’ll actually surpass our commitment this year. On behalf of Mpoma and GlobeMed at UCLA, I would like to thank all of you donors, who helped us reach this goal!

As exciting as February was, there are many exciting things to look forward to in March! The Mpoma team has already drafted their work plan for the month, and GlobeMed has already begun planning fundraisers for Spring Quarter-- let’s keep the momentum going!

• Excerpt from Mpoma's Annual Report (WASH section) (PDF)