Access to safe water is a human right- it is an integral feature of a prosperous and healthy community. 

Like many other African countries, Uganda faces enormous challenges, in both rural and urban settings, to access a clean water supply. Out of its population of 47 million people, approximately 38 million (81% of the population) lack access to safe water. Most of the population relies on surface water, instead of groundwater, for everyday living and has no way to access groundwater. This isn’t safe or sustainable, as surface water is much easier to pollute than groundwater and when surface water is used up, there’s no effective way to restore it.

The Reece Foundation was proud to award BridgIT Water Foundation with a Reece Foundation Grant to support the drilling of two boreholes in two rural villages located in Central Uganda.

BridgeIT is an Australian non-profit that working hard to improve access to safe drinking water, particularly in rural African communities. 

The overall goal of this grant was to improve the wellbeing of the communities by reducing the distance required to access water and to provide higher-quality water sources to reduce water-borne diseases prevalent in these villages due to the use of contaminated water sources. 

As a result of the project, 2,190 residents and 365 households gained access to quality drinking water. Impact measurement also revealed a 354% increase in the quality of water (baseline: 1.15/5).

Before this project, many people were forced to walk long distances to collect safe drinking water. The time spent to do this takes away from the time needed to attend school and work, particularly for women and girls. The distance to access quality water has since been reduced to an average of 1.5km with walking time reduced by 2 hours on average.

Executive Director of the Reece Foundation, Ipsita Wright said, “The work of the Grant program and initiatives like this are aligned to the Reece Foundation’s principle of doing good that lasts – empowering organisations like BridgIT to provide long-term and sustainable solutions, in partnership with the communities they work in. We're so proud of the impact this project has had in the first instance and look forward to continuing to work with BridgIT on future projects to further improve access to clean water and sanitation in sub-Saharan Africa.”