The community

Nakyenyi is a community of about 1,400 people in the Lwengo District of southeast Uganda. Members of the Nakyenyi community face many challenges when it comes to water, including contaminated and stagnant open sources, broken and low-production hand-pump wells, and long distances to collect water. In Nakyenyi, primarily children and women collect water. Not only does this place an incredible physical burden on the children and women, but it takes time that would otherwise be spent in school or tending to business and home duties. In addition, the time and effort spent collecting water limits how much people will use, contributing to poor health and sanitation in the community.

The Project

The Nakyenyi Project began in 2018, after the Bbanda Distribution System Project was officially closed. EWB-USA NEU has taken two assessment and one implementation trips to Nakyenyi Parish, Uganda. The goal of our two assessment trips was to build community relations while simultaneously collecting data for design solutions to address the community’s water need. The most recent implementation trip was taken in August 2023. PMEL, water quality, and elevation data were taken throughout the duration of the trip to help with the future design and allow the community to know the safety of their water sources. Along with collecting data, the EWB-USA NEU travel team met with the EWB East Africa team, Bernoulli Contractors, the District, and the Nakyenyi community water board. All of the meetings allowed our team members to create even more friendships with our community partners and gather knowledge to bring back to the Uganda program team back in the United States.

These trips have been successful, and EWB-USA NEU is currently in the process of analyzing alternative solutions for Nakyenyi’s water need with a goal to bring clean water to critical locations throughout town by August of 2020.