Water. Such a simple thing. And for for many people in plentiful supply, fresh clean water, to cook with, to wash in, to drink and allow hygienic sanitation.

But for many people clean water is in short supply. Such is the case in most parts of Uganda. Working through Tearfund, a Christian developmental agency, Kingserve has supported several water provision projects. Tearfund provides technical expertise and provides basic materials enabling communities to help themselves.  Such is the case in the Kigezi area in the mountainous south west of Uganda. Here training has been given to enable local communities to divert, filter and pipe fresh water to stand pipes and also teaching how water can be harvested from roofs and stored in locally made ferro-concrete tanks. Communities then share their expertise with other communities so the know-how is transmitted from village to village.

It is usually young girls who are sent to collect water from streams or springs which can be at a great distance or require climbing hundreds of metres with a 20kg jerrican on their heads. The water source is often shared with lifestock and so can be heavily contaminated. The picture at the right shows Stidia and her family at their home with the steep drop of the valley behind. Before Tearfund provided roof water harvesting Stidia had to make at least two trips a day to the stream at the bottom of the valley. Now the family has clean water and Stidia has been freed to attend school and work on the family shamba or market garden.

Water can be captured at springs like this one on the left and then be filtered and piped to stand pipes many kilometres away.

Water captured from roofs can be led into ferro-concrete tanks like this one on the right.

For more information on Tearfund and the many projects they support around the world go to their website at