Our Mission

Empowering refugee communities through clean water accessibility using solar-power technology

Our Story

million dollars a year spent by the UN on sanitary water

% of Sub-Saharan Africa lacks access to clean water

billion hours a year spent searching for water

% population growth every year

Background of the Problem

Easily accessible clean water is a basic human right, yet some communities, such as the Olua I refugee camp in Uganda, lack this privilege.

  • A consequence of the 2013 civil war in South Sudan was thousands of South Sudanese refugees entering Uganda through its northern borders.
  • This influx significantly increased the number of refugees in Uganda, which put a strain on the budget allocated to the refugee camps by the United Nations.
  • The lack of financial resources resulted in a lack of easily accessible clean water and small and infrequent food rations.

The current process of getting water in the community is dependent solely on installed boreholes and occasional UN-dispatched water trucks which transport water to the community at unpredictable times. Both of these methods are extremely impractical and struggle to provide sufficient water for the entire community.

Our Solution

Clean water accessibility using solar-power technology

Our project hopes to alleviate this situation by using a solar-powered water tank to provide clean water for household use and irrigation in the Olua I refugee camp.

  • Maji (“water” in Swahili) will install one solar-powered water tank for both household use and for irrigation.
  • Maji will use a stainless steel tank and PVC pipes that are environmentally-friendly and lead-free.
  • The use of solar power will ensure minimal maintenance costs so that refugees can afford to maintain the tank beyond the year of implementation.

Other Projects

Agricultural and Medical First-Aid Training

Similarly to how refugees wait in painstakingly long lines for water, they must do the same for getting their food rations, once every fifteen days. Currently, refugees are completely dependent on the financially-strained and rigid UN systems for food and water, resulting in minimal access to both. In response to this situation, some refugees are trying to grow their own food by leasing farms from the locals, but struggle to grow their own crops due to the long dry season and lack of agricultural knowledge.

  • Another component of Maji is the hands-on agricultural training it will offer to refugees. We will practice crop rotation, which is fruitful for the land and helps reduce crop disease.
  • The farmers, a mix of refugees and locals, will be divided into 8 cohorts. Each cohort plants a different type of crop each crop-rotation season, guaranteeing nutrient variety.

Additional training will include: land tilling, efficient and productive crop spacing, use of simple farm tools and machinery, and first aid and emergency medical training.