Water in Uganda
Robert Trowbridge was the guest speaker at the Ladies Fellowship meeting on Monday 16 April.
Robert Trowbridge
As one of a group of people from St. Mark’s Church, Gillingham, he had been part of a ten-year project of the charity ‘Food for the Hungry International’ which planned to help local people establish a water supply in their village and work with them to identify other projects during that time which would be helpful in improving their lives.
There were 25 ladies present who were keenly interested in hearing about the project which took place in August 2006. The cultural awareness training week-end had obviously been very valuable in highlighting the fact that Ugandan people wanted western people to come alongside them in working out solutions to their problems not just to send them money. The village had greeted the team as friends and the hundreds of children had welcomed them to their school, allowing them to use their classrooms as living accommodation.
Each member of the team had been prepared to do physical work to help build water towers but found that the Ugandans would only allow them to do this for short periods. Their encouragement was the major factor in getting the job done using local labour. As in many countries, there is a great difference between the wealthy and poor people in Uganda which Robert found difficult to comprehend. He had found great satisfaction in worshipping with the local village people and felt that the project had been worthwhile. Water is such a precious commodity and to be part of a project which brought clean water to the village had been a privilege.