Butangala Kaumba

296 people

Project Completed

“We have not had sickness in my household for a year.” - Shamim, mother of three

Butangala Kaumba, Uganda, Africa

GPS: 0.4144, 33.5244
  • Story
  • Plan
  • FAQ's

 

Clean Water, New Life: Shamim’s Story

 

For as long as she can remember, 25-year-old Shamim has gathered drinking water from the swamp. So when we met with her in March of 2020, she beamed with hope; her community has a safe water well!

The reality is still setting in for Shamim and other parents in Butangala Kaumba village, and they laugh with excitement when they consider every opportunity available to them now.

Shamim, her husband, and their three children live in Butangala Kaumba village and have a small farm on their property. Their oldest child is five years old, and she can go to school!

“For years, more and more of our children dropped out of school because education had become a luxury for us,” Shamim said. “But, everything changed from when we learned about healthy habits.”

When Shamim’s family began washing their hands with soap, keeping dishes off the ground, and using a bathroom of their own rather than going outside, they didn’t get sick as often. Soon, they saved so much on healthcare costs that they could pay school tuition.

“Now, with my child enrolled in school, her future and that of our community is brighter,” she said.

Every day, Shamim gathers safe drinking water from the community well. The well is a ray of hope for every person in the village.

“We have not had sickness in my household for a year,” she said. “Sickness used to be a weekly occurrence!”

Health is giving Shamim’s family the opportunities they always dreamed about.

“Being healthy has enabled us to work harder, increase our harvest which we sell and make savings,” she said. “Now I do business to boost income, educate my children, and prosper as a family.”

“I’m very happy!” she added.

With safe water and sanitation practices, families like Shamim’s are transformed. You can be a part of a transformation story. Sponsor a water project today, and follow along to see your impact.


 

Life in Butangala Kaumba: Nakate’s Story

February 2019

 

Twelve-year-old Zainab remembers running from the swamp. She remembers running for her life as older men chased after her, determined to harm her.

So many girls have fallen victim at the swamp in Butangala Kaumba village. Grandmother Nakate, who has lived in the village for most of her life, shared Zinab’s story with us as she shared her own, saying that Zainab must still walk to that swamp each day; her family has no choice.

Grandmother Nakate is a mother of 15, grandmother of 10, and a farmer. For as long as she can remember, her village has depended on water from a swamp four miles away.

The journey takes two hours, and Nakate and her children make the journey four times a day. That’s eight hours of water gathering in a single day.

Nakate has heard that when someone from Lifewater comes to speak with you, safe water always follows. She told us this and vowed she would do all she could to help Lifewater’s programs.

“If we get a borehole, we shall treasure and take very good care of it given our terrible experience so far,” she said. “We also expect to have more time to work and make more money.”

With saved income, Grandmother Nakate would start growing bananas, a profitable fruit, and send each of her grandchildren to school for as long as she was able.

Although she never could go to school herself, she said, “I’m passionate about education; I have 10 grandchildren living with me, and I would not like to see any left behind in school.”

In Butangala Kaumba village, many children are too sick from water-related illness to continue in school, and families who must pay for expensive medical treatment cannot afford tuition.

“We have many dreams that we would bring to reality with safe water access being a reality,” she said. “We would be way healthier and happier and our families would enjoy better lives as a result of our hard-work and investments.”

Most of all, a safe water source nearby would mean that the young girls of Butangala Kaumba are safe from long, dangerous walks for water.

You can help Nakate’s family and others in Butangala Kaumba village today. Your gift will provide health training for each household, plus a new, safe water source near their village.

Sponsor Butangala Kaumba village today.

Butangala Kaumba is in a very remote region of Uganda

View Interactive Map

This village is on its way to becoming a Healthy Village. The process takes approximately 24 months from start to finish. You can follow along with the progress below.

Here’s the Plan for Butangala Kaumba:

ready

Project Ready

Villages are carefully selected by Lifewater staff and wait for program work to begin in their area.

CLTS

In Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), each village goes through exercises that reveal how their current practices are making them sick, such as identifying all the places where feces are contaminating their environment. This important step equips communities to be knowledgeable about their health and willing to make changes.

clts
healthy-homes-registered

Healthy Homes Registered

A home is certified healthy when a family has adopted five healthy habits: washing hands with soap and water, storing and using water safely, building and using a bathroom with a roof and door, using a drying rack to keep dishes off the ground, and keeping the area around the home safe and clean.

ODF

When each household builds and uses their own functioning restroom, a community earns an “Open Defecation Free” (ODF) certification. Each country has their own processes and celebration for ODF villages, and it’s a huge accomplishment towards improved health for everyone.

odf
wc_schoolmc_formed

Water Committee Selected

Butangala Kaumba has selected water committee members to manage the safe village water source. Forming a water committee is a key step toward establishing a safe water source in a village. Committees are made up of local men and women who manage the well and collect fees, ensuring the community’s investment lasts for generations to come.

Construction Started

Work is officially underway to build a new water source for Butangala Kaumba village. Our local teams are using technology appropriate to the region and geography to ensure the new water source is sustainable.

construction_start
construction_complete

Village Has Safe Water Source

The new safe water source is now complete!

Clean, safe water transforms a village. Everyone gathers to celebrate, thanking God for the miracle in their community. 

Healthy Village

Great news! Butangala Kaumba is now a certified Healthy Village. That means the safe water source is complete and more than 90% of the community’s homes are healthy. That is a new future for 296 children and families.

healthy_village_achieved

Water Project FAQs

What is included in the cost of a water project?

When you sponsor a water project, you are helping bring lasting change. Your gift provides:

  • House-to-house hygiene and sanitation education
  • Custom engineered water source
  • Construction of a safe water source
  • Community engagement by Lifewater field staff to ensure change lasts

Lifewater also provides:

  • Monitoring and evaluation of the project with real-time updates to donors
  • Local church partnerships that equip the church to be the hands and feet of Jesus
  • Five-year water source maintenance and sustainability (funded by beneficiary communities on a volunteer basis)
Is this a real village? Am I impacting this actual village?

Yes! The village you are helping is a real village. All families photographed or shared from the project page have given their permission to have their information shared with you.

Can I visit programs and/or my sponsored water project?

Lifewater has local staff that live and serve among the communities and schools where Lifewater works. Our staff know the language and the culture and are best equipped to serve communities. Because we seek to ensure sustainable water projects and community buy in, we do not allow donors to visit the projects they sponsor. However, we do commit to sending real-time updates, photos, and stories from the projects themselves.

Where does Lifewater work?

With more than 40 years’ experience, LIfewater is the longest-running Christian clean water charity in North America. Over those 40 years, Lifewater has worked in more than 45 different countries. Currently, our work is focused in Sub-Saharan Africa (Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania) and Southeast Asia (Cambodia).

Why these countries and regions?

Lifewater identifies countries and regions that are unreached and underserved with basic water access and sanitation, which means we focus on areas where other organizations are not serving. 

Although great strides have been made in the past 20 years to solve the global water crisis, remote and rural populations still remain unreached with adequate water and sanitation. These distant regions are difficult and often costly for governments and NGOs to serve well. Many of these communities feel as though they have been forgotten.

Can I request a water project in a specific country?

Currently, Lifewater has programs in Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, and Cambodia. You can go to lifewater.org/projects to select a specific water project to help. Because our programs are regionalized and made in partnership with the local governments, we are not able to take requests for specific water projects outside of our existing programs.

What percent of funds go towards programs?

Lifewater budgets 80% of expenditures for programs. The remaining 20% is split between administrative/management and fundraising expenses. This ratio is best in class for nonprofits and is why Lifewater has received the highest rating from Charity Navigator.

Administrative/management expenses are used to ensure that we are effective in managing the funds entrusted to us and include the following types of expenses: accounting personnel, leadership time, professional development of staff, external auditors, legal counsel, government registration expenses in every U.S. state, credit card fees for processing donations, bank fees, database maintenance, and office expenses.

Fundraising expenses generate the income needed to do the work that we set out to do. These include the cost of direct mail appeals and communication, marketing projects, donor relations personnel, and email communication systems. Last year, every dollar invested into Lifewater fundraising efforts resulted in $10 of donation for the organization. 

Is Lifewater approved/vetted by 3rd party organizations?

Over our 40 year history, Lifewater has received the highest accreditations from the most respected rating organization in the industry. Lifewater is recognized as one of the top-rated charities in the United States by independent reporting organizations, including:

  • Charity Navigator (four stars)
  • Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA)
  • Guidestar (Platinum)
  • Great Nonprofits (five star)
  • Excellence in Giving

Learn more at https://lifewater.org/top-rated-charity.

How does Lifewater integrate faith into its work?

Lifewater’s work is founded on the belief that every person is made in the image of God. It is with this conviction that we seek out the globe’s most unreached, marginalized people groups in need of safe water. 

Both nationally and internationally, 100 percent of our staff are Christians. These Christian staff help facilitate Lifewater’s Healthy Church strategy in communities. And, where there are no churches, we work with church planting partners to start new churches. 

To create Healthy Churches, Lifewater first trains church leaders in foundational theology. These leaders are equipped with the basic story of the Christian faith and the biblical mandate to love others. Leaders learn that stopping the spread of disease and caring for the vulnerable aligns with our responsibility as Christians to love our neighbor. 

Second, Lifewater ensures churches have safe bathrooms on their premises, handwashing stations, clean water nearby, and the education to promote health within their congregations. It’s imperative that churches are early adopters of healthy hygiene practices. 

Third, Lifewater encourages churches to help vulnerable households become Healthy Homes. Church leaders undergo a training to become WASH (water access, sanitation, and hygiene) advocates in their communities. These advocates are encouraged to identify widows, child-headed households, the elderly, and the disabled to help them meet the health standards of Lifewater’s programs.

What is Lifewater’s process? What does the organization do, and how does it do it?

Lifewater’s Vision of a Healthy Village strategy is a relationship-first method. This model transforms entire regions house by house, village by village, and school by school. It is among the most intensive household-level work happening in the entire developing world and is closely tracked for progress, sustainability, and overall impact.

We construct custom-engineered safe water sources and teach life-saving health and sanitation practices in local villages and schools in need.

Story

 

Clean Water, New Life: Shamim’s Story

 

For as long as she can remember, 25-year-old Shamim has gathered drinking water from the swamp. So when we met with her in March of 2020, she beamed with hope; her community has a safe water well!

The reality is still setting in for Shamim and other parents in Butangala Kaumba village, and they laugh with excitement when they consider every opportunity available to them now.

Shamim, her husband, and their three children live in Butangala Kaumba village and have a small farm on their property. Their oldest child is five years old, and she can go to school!

“For years, more and more of our children dropped out of school because education had become a luxury for us,” Shamim said. “But, everything changed from when we learned about healthy habits.”

When Shamim’s family began washing their hands with soap, keeping dishes off the ground, and using a bathroom of their own rather than going outside, they didn’t get sick as often. Soon, they saved so much on healthcare costs that they could pay school tuition.

“Now, with my child enrolled in school, her future and that of our community is brighter,” she said.

Every day, Shamim gathers safe drinking water from the community well. The well is a ray of hope for every person in the village.

“We have not had sickness in my household for a year,” she said. “Sickness used to be a weekly occurrence!”

Health is giving Shamim’s family the opportunities they always dreamed about.

“Being healthy has enabled us to work harder, increase our harvest which we sell and make savings,” she said. “Now I do business to boost income, educate my children, and prosper as a family.”

“I’m very happy!” she added.

With safe water and sanitation practices, families like Shamim’s are transformed. You can be a part of a transformation story. Sponsor a water project today, and follow along to see your impact.


 

Life in Butangala Kaumba: Nakate’s Story

February 2019

 

Twelve-year-old Zainab remembers running from the swamp. She remembers running for her life as older men chased after her, determined to harm her.

So many girls have fallen victim at the swamp in Butangala Kaumba village. Grandmother Nakate, who has lived in the village for most of her life, shared Zinab’s story with us as she shared her own, saying that Zainab must still walk to that swamp each day; her family has no choice.

Grandmother Nakate is a mother of 15, grandmother of 10, and a farmer. For as long as she can remember, her village has depended on water from a swamp four miles away.

The journey takes two hours, and Nakate and her children make the journey four times a day. That’s eight hours of water gathering in a single day.

Nakate has heard that when someone from Lifewater comes to speak with you, safe water always follows. She told us this and vowed she would do all she could to help Lifewater’s programs.

“If we get a borehole, we shall treasure and take very good care of it given our terrible experience so far,” she said. “We also expect to have more time to work and make more money.”

With saved income, Grandmother Nakate would start growing bananas, a profitable fruit, and send each of her grandchildren to school for as long as she was able.

Although she never could go to school herself, she said, “I’m passionate about education; I have 10 grandchildren living with me, and I would not like to see any left behind in school.”

In Butangala Kaumba village, many children are too sick from water-related illness to continue in school, and families who must pay for expensive medical treatment cannot afford tuition.

“We have many dreams that we would bring to reality with safe water access being a reality,” she said. “We would be way healthier and happier and our families would enjoy better lives as a result of our hard-work and investments.”

Most of all, a safe water source nearby would mean that the young girls of Butangala Kaumba are safe from long, dangerous walks for water.

You can help Nakate’s family and others in Butangala Kaumba village today. Your gift will provide health training for each household, plus a new, safe water source near their village.

Sponsor Butangala Kaumba village today.

Plan

Butangala Kaumba is in a very remote region of Uganda

View Interactive Map

This village is on its way to becoming a Healthy Village. The process takes approximately 24 months from start to finish. You can follow along with the progress below.

Here’s the Plan for Butangala Kaumba:

ready

Project Ready

Villages are carefully selected by Lifewater staff and wait for program work to begin in their area.

CLTS

In Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), each village goes through exercises that reveal how their current practices are making them sick, such as identifying all the places where feces are contaminating their environment. This important step equips communities to be knowledgeable about their health and willing to make changes.

clts
healthy-homes-registered

Healthy Homes Registered

A home is certified healthy when a family has adopted five healthy habits: washing hands with soap and water, storing and using water safely, building and using a bathroom with a roof and door, using a drying rack to keep dishes off the ground, and keeping the area around the home safe and clean.

ODF

When each household builds and uses their own functioning restroom, a community earns an “Open Defecation Free” (ODF) certification. Each country has their own processes and celebration for ODF villages, and it’s a huge accomplishment towards improved health for everyone.

odf
wc_schoolmc_formed

Water Committee Selected

Butangala Kaumba has selected water committee members to manage the safe village water source. Forming a water committee is a key step toward establishing a safe water source in a village. Committees are made up of local men and women who manage the well and collect fees, ensuring the community’s investment lasts for generations to come.

Construction Started

Work is officially underway to build a new water source for Butangala Kaumba village. Our local teams are using technology appropriate to the region and geography to ensure the new water source is sustainable.

construction_start
construction_complete

Village Has Safe Water Source

The new safe water source is now complete!

Clean, safe water transforms a village. Everyone gathers to celebrate, thanking God for the miracle in their community. 

Healthy Village

Great news! Butangala Kaumba is now a certified Healthy Village. That means the safe water source is complete and more than 90% of the community’s homes are healthy. That is a new future for 296 children and families.

healthy_village_achieved

FAQ's

Water Project FAQs

What is included in the cost of a water project?

When you sponsor a water project, you are helping bring lasting change. Your gift provides:

  • House-to-house hygiene and sanitation education
  • Custom engineered water source
  • Construction of a safe water source
  • Community engagement by Lifewater field staff to ensure change lasts

Lifewater also provides:

  • Monitoring and evaluation of the project with real-time updates to donors
  • Local church partnerships that equip the church to be the hands and feet of Jesus
  • Five-year water source maintenance and sustainability (funded by beneficiary communities on a volunteer basis)
Is this a real village? Am I impacting this actual village?

Yes! The village you are helping is a real village. All families photographed or shared from the project page have given their permission to have their information shared with you.

Can I visit programs and/or my sponsored water project?

Lifewater has local staff that live and serve among the communities and schools where Lifewater works. Our staff know the language and the culture and are best equipped to serve communities. Because we seek to ensure sustainable water projects and community buy in, we do not allow donors to visit the projects they sponsor. However, we do commit to sending real-time updates, photos, and stories from the projects themselves.

Where does Lifewater work?

With more than 40 years’ experience, LIfewater is the longest-running Christian clean water charity in North America. Over those 40 years, Lifewater has worked in more than 45 different countries. Currently, our work is focused in Sub-Saharan Africa (Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania) and Southeast Asia (Cambodia).

Why these countries and regions?

Lifewater identifies countries and regions that are unreached and underserved with basic water access and sanitation, which means we focus on areas where other organizations are not serving. 

Although great strides have been made in the past 20 years to solve the global water crisis, remote and rural populations still remain unreached with adequate water and sanitation. These distant regions are difficult and often costly for governments and NGOs to serve well. Many of these communities feel as though they have been forgotten.

Can I request a water project in a specific country?

Currently, Lifewater has programs in Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, and Cambodia. You can go to lifewater.org/projects to select a specific water project to help. Because our programs are regionalized and made in partnership with the local governments, we are not able to take requests for specific water projects outside of our existing programs.

What percent of funds go towards programs?

Lifewater budgets 80% of expenditures for programs. The remaining 20% is split between administrative/management and fundraising expenses. This ratio is best in class for nonprofits and is why Lifewater has received the highest rating from Charity Navigator.

Administrative/management expenses are used to ensure that we are effective in managing the funds entrusted to us and include the following types of expenses: accounting personnel, leadership time, professional development of staff, external auditors, legal counsel, government registration expenses in every U.S. state, credit card fees for processing donations, bank fees, database maintenance, and office expenses.

Fundraising expenses generate the income needed to do the work that we set out to do. These include the cost of direct mail appeals and communication, marketing projects, donor relations personnel, and email communication systems. Last year, every dollar invested into Lifewater fundraising efforts resulted in $10 of donation for the organization. 

Is Lifewater approved/vetted by 3rd party organizations?

Over our 40 year history, Lifewater has received the highest accreditations from the most respected rating organization in the industry. Lifewater is recognized as one of the top-rated charities in the United States by independent reporting organizations, including:

  • Charity Navigator (four stars)
  • Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA)
  • Guidestar (Platinum)
  • Great Nonprofits (five star)
  • Excellence in Giving

Learn more at https://lifewater.org/top-rated-charity.

How does Lifewater integrate faith into its work?

Lifewater’s work is founded on the belief that every person is made in the image of God. It is with this conviction that we seek out the globe’s most unreached, marginalized people groups in need of safe water. 

Both nationally and internationally, 100 percent of our staff are Christians. These Christian staff help facilitate Lifewater’s Healthy Church strategy in communities. And, where there are no churches, we work with church planting partners to start new churches. 

To create Healthy Churches, Lifewater first trains church leaders in foundational theology. These leaders are equipped with the basic story of the Christian faith and the biblical mandate to love others. Leaders learn that stopping the spread of disease and caring for the vulnerable aligns with our responsibility as Christians to love our neighbor. 

Second, Lifewater ensures churches have safe bathrooms on their premises, handwashing stations, clean water nearby, and the education to promote health within their congregations. It’s imperative that churches are early adopters of healthy hygiene practices. 

Third, Lifewater encourages churches to help vulnerable households become Healthy Homes. Church leaders undergo a training to become WASH (water access, sanitation, and hygiene) advocates in their communities. These advocates are encouraged to identify widows, child-headed households, the elderly, and the disabled to help them meet the health standards of Lifewater’s programs.

What is Lifewater’s process? What does the organization do, and how does it do it?

Lifewater’s Vision of a Healthy Village strategy is a relationship-first method. This model transforms entire regions house by house, village by village, and school by school. It is among the most intensive household-level work happening in the entire developing world and is closely tracked for progress, sustainability, and overall impact.

We construct custom-engineered safe water sources and teach life-saving health and sanitation practices in local villages and schools in need.

Your gift reflects your trust in Lifewater International. We commit to honor your generosity by using your gift to help further the mission and vision of Lifewater International. Your donation is used by Lifewater International according to the project objectives to provide safe drinking water and improved sanitation and hygiene within the specified program area. Lifewater International is a charitable organization as described in 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, registered in the United States. All donations are tax deductible to the full extent allowed by law.

Donations are non-refundable. Lifewater International will honor a donor’s request for any pre-approved program or project whenever possible. In rare occasions where this is not possible, gifts will be used where needed, in accordance with the organization’s charitable purpose. In accordance with this policy, donor’s explicitly release Lifewater International from further restriction on such funds.