Unity Technical School

The Unity Technical School is in the village Abunga in northern Uganda. The well serves the school and for 4 neighboring villages. The school has 350 students, 210 boys and 150 girls. That in itself is a huge deal as secondary education amongst girls is not that common in rural areas of the developing world.

There are 15 full-time teachers, 75 orphans and 12 special needs children.

Before Drop in the Bucket built a well at the school the nearest well was 1.5 kms away, and it had been broken for four months due to a lack of funds for repair. Instead of just drilling them a well like the last NGO had without any commitment from the community, we informed them that we would not be able to help them unless they were actively involved in the project. We laid out the structure of our Village Savings and Loan Association Program and told them that they would have to strictly adhere to it before we would even consider drilling. That mean structured meetings with minutes taken, attendance and lateness being marked into a book and collections logged.

The school was happy to comply and we did end up building this well, but there have been several locations where we felt the community was not participating enough and we were not able to help them. This is always a collaboration between Drop in the Bucket, the school and the local community.