Samaritan's Purse Surpasses Goal to Provide Clean Water in Northern Uganda

Peter Wooding : May 3, 2016
ASSIST News Service

"This means we can now provide the basic right of clean water to 48,000 people by installing and repairing 120 wells. That's 70 more wells than we'd planned."

[ASSIST News] Samaritan's Purse is able to provide clean water to more than twice as many people in Northern Uganda as they'd planned, after more than doubling their original campaign target and raising close to £1 million (UK Pounds). (Photo via Samaritan's Purse)

Thanks to so many generous supporters, the charity raised almost £500,000 and this money was doubled by the UK Government, under its UK Aid Match scheme, bringing the total raised to a staggering £953,412.

"This means we can now provide the basic right of clean water to 48,000 people by installing and repairing 120 wells. That's 70 more wells than we'd planned," explains Samaritan's Purse UK Executive Director Simon Barrington.

Among the many people already seeing the benefits of having access to clean water is 60-year-old Nangiro Paul from Looi village, who says: "Samaritan's Purse has come to save the two communities of Looi and Lokaale from drinking dirty water. Before the borehole was repaired, the community used to walk long distances looking for river water, surface water or stagnant water which was dirty and time consuming.

"There were cases of assault and rape because of the long distance to the water sources and loneliness in the bushes. But now this is history!"

From the time they began drinking clean, safe water from the repaired borehole, Nangiro and his family have had no cases of illness—either diarrhea or typhoid. He now has plans to grow vegetables that will be used for household consumption and commercial use. This in turn will improve his household income. (Photo: Nangiro Paul by the Looi borehole/via ANS)

Lomuria Nadim, aged 28 exclaims: "Because of the heavy jerrycans on our heads and the long distances that we used to walk, we used to suffer a lot of back pain and headaches. But now all this has gone away because the water is very near our homes."

Since the fundraising campaign ended, Samaritan's Purse teams have been hard at work meeting with communities like Nangiro's, who desperately need access to clean water near their homes. By the end of February 2016, 17 boreholes had been repaired, with another 13 due to be completed by the end of March.

Simon Barrington concluded: "We are so thankful for the prayers and gifts of our supporters so that we can now bring life-saving clean water to many more people in Karamoja. Clean water transforms lives, and we are eternally grateful for those lives that can now be changed."

To find out about Samaritan's Purse latest water campaign to bring clean water to the people of South Sudan visit www.turnonthetap.org.uk.