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“I dream of venturing into other more profitable activities should we get safe water.” - Brenda

Uganda

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Your gift will provide clean water and improved health to families in Uganda.

 

Brenda’s Life in Kakumiro, Uganda

April 2021

 

In the region of Kakumiro, Uganda, rural communities battle extreme poverty. The water problem is ever-present, and it prevents men and women from starting business and children from going to school.

Brenda, a mother of three, lives in Bikokoma Tatu, a village in the region of Kakumiro. Like most all women in the area, she wakes early in the morning to gather the day’s water. Each day, she makes three trips to and from a swamp.

Brenda’s children don’t go many weeks without falling ill from a waterborne illness, and it seems she and her husband, David, are always taking them to health clinics for treatment.

“We believe everything would be great for us if it wasn’t for the unsafe water,” she said.

The cost of treatment and investment of time are huge. They take much of what the family is able to produce from their farm.

“I dream of venturing into other more profitable activities should we get safe water,” she said. “There is no limitation to what we can do with our lives here when we get water.”

Brenda wants to open a business when she’s not walking for water or taking children to the clinic. She wants to do it so she can lift her family out of poverty and educate her children.

“My most important dreams are tied to the future of my children,” she said. “Although my children have sometimes been forced to miss school through sickness, I’ve still been able to keep them there because I believe in education.”

This, she says, is the greatest gift she can provide for them.

“Education offers them the best chance to escape extreme poverty and poor health,” she said. “I dream of them having a better life than I have.”

When you give, you empower women to start their own businesses in rural Uganda. You give them time, energy, health, and saved income to thrive. Plus, when women rise, the family rises with them; you’ll help get children to school and change lives for generations to come.

 

About Uganda

 

Uganda is home to 43 million people. Half of them do not have access to safe drinking water.

The majority of families Lifewater serves in Uganda rely on agriculture for their annual income. The lack of access to safe water drains their time and energy, since nearly 22 million people in Uganda cannot gather safe drinking water in less than a 30-minute trip. Mothers and children who could be farming or in school spend hours every day collecting water.

There are also disparities in water access in Uganda, so even in urban areas people living in poverty pay as much as 22% of their income to purchase water. 

Other water challenges have to do with sanitation and hygiene, since 78% of people do not have a reliable hand washing facility supplied with soap and water. Without healthy hand washing habits disease spreads quickly, especially among children.

This disproportionately affects children under five years old, since their immune systems are still developing.Diarrhea is a global leading cause of death in children under the age of five years old, and it’s primarily caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation.

The good news is, this is entirely preventable. Lifewater’s work shows that waterborne illness can be nearly eliminated with basic access to things like clean drinking water, proper sanitation, and washing hands with soap.

Give safe water to Uganda today.

Am I sponsoring a specific village?

Your gift will help provide safe drinking water and improved sanitation and hygiene for the entire Kakumiro program rather than one specific village, making it possible for Lifewater to reach this family as well as their neighbors.

Will I receive updates?

Yes! You can expect regular updates on progress in the Kakumiro region. And, when the communities in the region are transformed with safe water, you’ll receive a story and photos from a family whose life is changed because of your gift.

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

Your gift will provide clean water and improved health to families in Uganda.

 

Brenda’s Life in Kakumiro, Uganda

April 2021

 

In the region of Kakumiro, Uganda, rural communities battle extreme poverty. The water problem is ever-present, and it prevents men and women from starting business and children from going to school.

Brenda, a mother of three, lives in Bikokoma Tatu, a village in the region of Kakumiro. Like most all women in the area, she wakes early in the morning to gather the day’s water. Each day, she makes three trips to and from a swamp.

Brenda’s children don’t go many weeks without falling ill from a waterborne illness, and it seems she and her husband, David, are always taking them to health clinics for treatment.

“We believe everything would be great for us if it wasn’t for the unsafe water,” she said.

The cost of treatment and investment of time are huge. They take much of what the family is able to produce from their farm.

“I dream of venturing into other more profitable activities should we get safe water,” she said. “There is no limitation to what we can do with our lives here when we get water.”

Brenda wants to open a business when she’s not walking for water or taking children to the clinic. She wants to do it so she can lift her family out of poverty and educate her children.

“My most important dreams are tied to the future of my children,” she said. “Although my children have sometimes been forced to miss school through sickness, I’ve still been able to keep them there because I believe in education.”

This, she says, is the greatest gift she can provide for them.

“Education offers them the best chance to escape extreme poverty and poor health,” she said. “I dream of them having a better life than I have.”

When you give, you empower women to start their own businesses in rural Uganda. You give them time, energy, health, and saved income to thrive. Plus, when women rise, the family rises with them; you’ll help get children to school and change lives for generations to come.

Uganda

 

About Uganda

 

Uganda is home to 43 million people. Half of them do not have access to safe drinking water.

The majority of families Lifewater serves in Uganda rely on agriculture for their annual income. The lack of access to safe water drains their time and energy, since nearly 22 million people in Uganda cannot gather safe drinking water in less than a 30-minute trip. Mothers and children who could be farming or in school spend hours every day collecting water.

There are also disparities in water access in Uganda, so even in urban areas people living in poverty pay as much as 22% of their income to purchase water. 

Other water challenges have to do with sanitation and hygiene, since 78% of people do not have a reliable hand washing facility supplied with soap and water. Without healthy hand washing habits disease spreads quickly, especially among children.

This disproportionately affects children under five years old, since their immune systems are still developing.Diarrhea is a global leading cause of death in children under the age of five years old, and it’s primarily caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation.

The good news is, this is entirely preventable. Lifewater’s work shows that waterborne illness can be nearly eliminated with basic access to things like clean drinking water, proper sanitation, and washing hands with soap.

Give safe water to Uganda today.

FAQ's

Am I sponsoring a specific village?

Your gift will help provide safe drinking water and improved sanitation and hygiene for the entire Kakumiro program rather than one specific village, making it possible for Lifewater to reach this family as well as their neighbors.

Will I receive updates?

Yes! You can expect regular updates on progress in the Kakumiro region. And, when the communities in the region are transformed with safe water, you’ll receive a story and photos from a family whose life is changed because of your gift.

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.