Rugarama

225 people

Project Completed

April 30, 2019

“Our children who missed school a lot are now able to attend consistently.” - Eseza

Rugarama, Uganda, Africa

GPS: 1.0052, 31.4223
  • Story
  • Plan
  • FAQ's

 

Clean Water, New Life: Eseza’s Story


Each day, Eseza’s children return home from school just as she is returning from the farm, and they crowd around their mother in an effort to be the first to tell her about their day. It brings a smile to her face each time.

“Our children who missed school a lot are now able to attend consistently, which improves their chances of living better lives in the future,” Eseza said.

Eseza lives with her husband and five children in Rugarama village, a community that just received its own supply of safe water.

“Being healthy has allowed us more productive time to work and break the cycle of poverty,” Eseza said.

Just last year, Eseza’s family drank contaminated water and fell sick all the time. They lost valuable time and money treating waterborne diseases and traveling long distances for water.

Now, Eseza is able to plant more maize, beans, and other crops. She has time to water and tend to her farm, which increases her income.

“The elimination of the disease burden and improved yields have made it possible for us to save and plan for other ventures,” Eseza said.

Eseza is an entrepreneur and a dreamer. For years, she dreamed of having the time and money to fix her home. With safe water and improved health, she and her family are working together to fix up the cracked walls and roof.

“I’ve been able to save to construct my house to the level where it’s habitable,” Eseza said.

Through a big smile, Eseza shared that she is now saving to send her children to universities when they’re old enough.

“Through my savings from the harvest, I’m the process of engaging in other ventures that will make it possible for me to educate my children up to the university level,” Eseza said.

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


 

Life in Rugarama: Eseza’s Story

September 2018


The Nakakawa family is determined to keep their children in school, but they are sick constantly. Medication takes most of the family’s profits each month, and the children miss school for months at a time.

Eseza and her five children live in Rugarama village, Ethiopia. She and her husband grow beans and corn to eat and sell for their children’s’ medical expenses and school fees.

At 5 a.m., Eseza and her 13-year-old daughter, Evelyn, walk to the stream to fetch the day’s water. But, the water makes them sick.

“If you are sick… you don’t work, you have nothing to eat. You can’t educate your children and you start asking yourself why you should keep suffering,” she said. “But, I think about their future, and I keep going.”

Evelyn recently recovered from bouts of cholera and typhoid, two water-borne illnesses that can be fatal when left untreated.

“I want to be like women who drive cars one day,” Evelyn said.

To get out of poverty, Evelyn knows she must stay in school, but frequent illness prevents her.

“I think safe water would solve many of our problems,” Eseza said. “Maybe we can even save the money that goes to doctors and put it towards other things?”

You can help Eseza’s children and other families in Rugarama village today. Your gift will provide health training for each household, plus a new, safe water source near their village.

Lasting change means more than just building a well. Local Lifewater staff will work house by house to teach healthy habits and share the love of Christ with everyone. With clean water, Eseza’s children can spend more time in school.

Here’s what happens when you sponsor a village water project through Lifewater:

Partner with a village. Your gift kickstarts a community water project.
Teach healthy habits. Small changes make a big impact on family health.
Build a well. The village contributes up to 15% for construction.
Measure impact. Local staff track success and provide support.
Engage the church. We equip local churches to love their community.

Sponsor Rugarama village today.

Rugarama 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 Rugarama:

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

Rugarama 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 Rugarama 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! Rugarama 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 225 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: Eseza’s Story


Each day, Eseza’s children return home from school just as she is returning from the farm, and they crowd around their mother in an effort to be the first to tell her about their day. It brings a smile to her face each time.

“Our children who missed school a lot are now able to attend consistently, which improves their chances of living better lives in the future,” Eseza said.

Eseza lives with her husband and five children in Rugarama village, a community that just received its own supply of safe water.

“Being healthy has allowed us more productive time to work and break the cycle of poverty,” Eseza said.

Just last year, Eseza’s family drank contaminated water and fell sick all the time. They lost valuable time and money treating waterborne diseases and traveling long distances for water.

Now, Eseza is able to plant more maize, beans, and other crops. She has time to water and tend to her farm, which increases her income.

“The elimination of the disease burden and improved yields have made it possible for us to save and plan for other ventures,” Eseza said.

Eseza is an entrepreneur and a dreamer. For years, she dreamed of having the time and money to fix her home. With safe water and improved health, she and her family are working together to fix up the cracked walls and roof.

“I’ve been able to save to construct my house to the level where it’s habitable,” Eseza said.

Through a big smile, Eseza shared that she is now saving to send her children to universities when they’re old enough.

“Through my savings from the harvest, I’m the process of engaging in other ventures that will make it possible for me to educate my children up to the university level,” Eseza said.

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


 

Life in Rugarama: Eseza’s Story

September 2018


The Nakakawa family is determined to keep their children in school, but they are sick constantly. Medication takes most of the family’s profits each month, and the children miss school for months at a time.

Eseza and her five children live in Rugarama village, Ethiopia. She and her husband grow beans and corn to eat and sell for their children’s’ medical expenses and school fees.

At 5 a.m., Eseza and her 13-year-old daughter, Evelyn, walk to the stream to fetch the day’s water. But, the water makes them sick.

“If you are sick… you don’t work, you have nothing to eat. You can’t educate your children and you start asking yourself why you should keep suffering,” she said. “But, I think about their future, and I keep going.”

Evelyn recently recovered from bouts of cholera and typhoid, two water-borne illnesses that can be fatal when left untreated.

“I want to be like women who drive cars one day,” Evelyn said.

To get out of poverty, Evelyn knows she must stay in school, but frequent illness prevents her.

“I think safe water would solve many of our problems,” Eseza said. “Maybe we can even save the money that goes to doctors and put it towards other things?”

You can help Eseza’s children and other families in Rugarama village today. Your gift will provide health training for each household, plus a new, safe water source near their village.

Lasting change means more than just building a well. Local Lifewater staff will work house by house to teach healthy habits and share the love of Christ with everyone. With clean water, Eseza’s children can spend more time in school.

Here’s what happens when you sponsor a village water project through Lifewater:

Partner with a village. Your gift kickstarts a community water project.
Teach healthy habits. Small changes make a big impact on family health.
Build a well. The village contributes up to 15% for construction.
Measure impact. Local staff track success and provide support.
Engage the church. We equip local churches to love their community.

Sponsor Rugarama village today.

Plan

Rugarama 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 Rugarama:

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

Rugarama 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 Rugarama 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! Rugarama 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 225 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.