REACH for Uganda is reaching the final stages of construction for the first phase of our biggest project yet - the Arlington Secondary and Vocational School (ASVS), which will open in 2025.

To help us complete this phase of construction, two generous families have issued an exciting challenge! They will match donations up to $75,000 toward completing necessary water and sanitation infrastructure for the secondary school as well as one of our primary schools, Arlington Junior School (AJS) in Bududa, Uganda. Help us complete this challenge and finish this exciting project!

Providing Clean Water for Our Schools

Benjamin Schoenbrun, a REACH for Uganda board member, providing filtered rainwater to students at AJS in March with the Ugandan Water Project. Some of the kids were very excited.

Clean water is a scarce resource in Eastern Uganda. Students spend several hours each day gathering polluted water from the rivers and wood to boil it (when boiling occurs). Due to polluted water used for drinking, cooking, and cleaning dishes, members of the community suffer from gastrointestinal diseases like diarrhea to typhoid and cholera. Through this exciting fundraising challenge, we hope to solve the problems of water scarcity and waterborne disease for REACH schools and clinics, beginning with the ASVS and AJS.

The Bududa district has plentiful rainfall, but only polluted river water is available in much of the area during the dry season. For this reason, the water system we will install will maximize use of harvested rainwater from school buildings to the extent that is practical. We are also in the final stages of connecting both ASVS and AJS to the Eastern Umbrella gravity water system and will use this gravity water to supplement rainwater harvesting to eliminate the water scarcity problem year-round. Both harvested rainwater and gravity water are not safely drinkable without filtration and purification, so both schools will have ultraviolet treatment and reverse osmosis water filtration. Easy access to clean water will do more than dramatically improve health and reduce reliance on firewood and charcoal, it will also give students more time to focus on school and just be kids.

The $75,000 in matching contributions will provide most of the funding necessary to complete the water system for ASVS, e.g., a 60,000-liter storage tank for treated water. We hope that, when the systems are fully in place at ASVS and AJS, both schools will have excess clean water for much of the year, enabling them to provide water for the surrounding communities.

The need for water does not stop here.

With your generous contributions toward completing this challenge, we will be about halfway toward creating and maintaining a complete water solution for the AAH schools. As part of this solution, both AJS and MJS will require large tanks to store clean water, each costing approximately $23,000.

You can help to make a difference and double your impact by participating in this matching challenge! Give what you can to help us to reach our goal of $7,000,000 to complete Arlington Secondary and Vocational School! We need to raise at least $500,000 to complete the first phase of construction and want to start the next construction phase as soon as possible.

Please also consider asking your employer, place of worship, or corporations to match your contributions or become partners with REACH for Uganda.