ST. MATHIAS PRIMARY SCHOOL,
KAZO VILLAGE, UGANDA

FUNDED DECEMBER 10, 2022

Funding was originally targeted for the Muramba Primary School, but the Ugandan government stepped in and provided a well for the school. That doesn’t usually happen to us, but at least the people there are getting good, clean water now.

Kazo Village is in the Kyankwanzi District of Uganda. The community has over 280 households, for nearly 1000 people. There are also two congregations, and two schools with 500 students and 600 students, respectively. The well would be located at St. Mathias Primary School, in the middle of town.

The expectation is that the water will be used for villagers, parishioners and the school children. There will be somewhere between 1000 – 2000 people [using the well] on a given day. 1000 is the population that will use the well when school is out, and when the students are in school (and some do board at every school in Uganda) it will be closer to 2000 people. It is difficult to give a closer estimate because some of the students live in the village and would be from the 1000 estimated villagers that are already living there day to day.

The current water source is a deep pond. And the school does have a rain barrel, but it does not meet the water needs for the whole school, or village.  The villagers and students gather water from [this] stagnant pond of muddy water that they know contains typhoid and diphtheria. They also have incredibly poor hygiene, resulting in skin rashes and illness due to not having water to clean themselves.

We have been drilling in the area for over a decade with a dedicated drill team. Herbert, our man on the ground, is on our payroll and has been working for and with us since CEED’s inception in 1999. He has handpicked and trained his two drill teams. The cost of a well is broken down between the raw costs of supplies and the cost of labor. We do our best to make sure that our teams are paid fair
wages for drilling so that they can support their families. After all, a workman is worth their wages.

We do keep a small admin hold back from every donation, 9% in total, which we have dropped from 10%. We have recently raised the well cost we give to donors to $5000, but we kept the $450 admin hold that we were always using since the Ugandan cost of a well rose, but the US cost did not. The admin hold goes to keeping the lights on and for the hours US side spent managing wells and donations. This also goes to rig maintenance as all spare parts needed are ordered from the US office out of the admin money.

One of the most important transactions we do is giving the ownership of the well to the village or school that it is placed in. Once that village knows that the well is theirs, they take ownership of it is a way that never happens with government wells. In every village that we work with, we set up a water committee They oversee collecting some money from each of the 380 households in the village to go to a water fund for future repairs. This is usually a couple of pennies a month at most. They can also choose to collect and sell excess water to local farmers in case of a drought. They will save a portion of that money for basic maintenance.

We [have] learned through experience that this process changes the way the village thinks about the well. They keep it clean and weeded, they check the pump and make sure that it is working, they do some basic preventative care and maintenance, and they take the initiative to contact us if something is wrong.

COMPLETED FEBUARY 16, 2023

Bad news: Although the well was drilled before Christmas, it was not cased until January, when the ground was dry enough. Partly due to the extended rainy season, and partly due to the large numer of new wells in the area, there was additional delay while we waited on the plaque for this one.  Once it was installed, the team hosted a dedication celebration and sent the final pictures and completion report.

Good news: Water is flowing for the people!

Well Information:
Location:                        St. Mathias Nursery and Primary School 
Well Depth:                   100 ft
Water:                               55 ft
Yield Test Estimate:  1,950 ltr/hr
Pump test duration:  3 hrs 

Below are photos taken during the drilling process, and of the people rejoicing in their new, clean water.

Students, teachers and villagers gathered when the pump became operational.

Following are the photos from the dedication celebration.  Note that the chained and padlocked enclosure, seen in these pictures, iserves to protect the pump from damage and vandalism, not to prevent people from getting water.