Change the Life of a Ugandan Child with Water

July 14 was a special day in the life of the students of St. Lawrence School, the patients and staff at St. Francis Health Center and the community of Migyera. Bishop Paul Ssemogerere from the Kasana Luweero Diocese in the presence of priests from the diocese, community members, the school band, local and district officials, Fr. Lawrence and our ChangeALife Uganda team, blessed our water project and pulled the lever to let the water flow.

What great excitement and celebration - finally clean, safe water from the deep aquifer. The whole community celebrated with music, singing, speeches and traditional dances performed by St. Lawrence School students. Smiles and laughter filled the school yard as the children for the first time in their lives jumped up and down and played in water as it fell on their heads, wet their shirts and cooled them off in the hot afternoon sun.

It was overwhelming for Dave and me as tears ran down our faces thinking of the many donors - especially the quarters from hundreds of NJ school children and the caring and generous donors who made this gift possible. It has been a long journey from when we started in 2009 - 5 years later, water in MIgyera. On behalf of Fr. Lawrence Kimbowa, Dave and me and the ChangeALife team, thank you for your support. Please extend a big thank you to any of your friends who donated to the water project for their support. It was an amazing day!

It is with much excitement and anticipation that we await an email confirming water is filling CALU's 50,000L water tank. Any day now the students of St. Lawrence School and the heatlh center patients will have abundant, safe water.  The installation of 1600 meters of piping and the distribution networks to the school, heath center and the consumer connections was completed early April.  

Recently I received this report from Andrew Wesige, the Headmaster at St. Lawrence School. 

Work on the water project is going on well, the engineers are working tirelessly to complete the work despite the tough ground they have faced while digging the trench. St. Lawrence children have been giving in a hand on tasks such as covering the pipes in the trenches with soil and carrying materials or giving simple manual labor on site to the engineers as shown on photos attached. Indeed the learners are longing for this water making them anxious about the progress on the project. Drought here has been very long since it started late October last year to date. As a result we are using water sparingly that learners have felt the impact.

Fr. Lawrence updated me a few days ago that the final procees is in place with Uganda electric to connect the power from the transformer to the water pump.  As we said in our last report that we are confident 2014 will be the year of water, a year that would not be possible with out the continued support of all of our Change A Life Uganda friends.  Stay tuned....any day now!