On September 18th, Jeff Benway from the NH contingent of Engineers Without Borders, addressed the Rotary Club of Nashua regarding Engineers Without Borders. Jeff talked about a project they are staring in Uganda in 2018. It will be a water project for the people of 3 villages they visited in that country.
They chose to help these 3 villages of the 9 they visited due to limited resources. Many of the people there are constantly sickened by the water which is really not safe to drink but they have little choice. He told us that Uganda is a country in central Africa of 36 million people and is about the size of the state of Oregon. The people are very poor and lack many of the things we would consider ordinary such as clean drinking water, or electricity to name a couple. There system of governance is much different than ours and they have almost no resources. The people there have very poor hygiene and all the water they tested was positive for ecoli.
They have managed to secure almost enough funding to complete the three new drilled wells they will be adding to help these people in early 2018. The wells are going down about 200 feet into the ground and when they are completed they are hopeful for 20 years of life expectancy. The people in Uganda will be responsible for maintaining the well and will be taught what they need to know to do so as required.