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VfP Partner Highlight
Voicing the Volunteer Experience:
Who: Dwight Hanson
Volunteer Host Organization: Engineers Without Borders
Where: Uganda, Africa
Sector: Global Health, Education, Humanitarian Assistance, Environment & Natural Resources & Agriculture
Volunteer Activity: Assessed local village systems to determine projects to improve infrastructure and educational needs.
“We require community involvement in all our projects. Working together, we should be able to develop sustainable projects that will result in lasting improvements to schools and clinics.”
Amid a group of engineers, with Engineers Without Borders, I traveled to the rural communities of Gayaza and Wambale, Uganda to design projects to improve infrastructure and educational needs. With the support of local churches in Uganda and St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Longmont, Colorado we were able to assess the needs of these communities. The partnerships with Makerere University students and the community helped us to gather background data for future projects. This included the assessment of supplying and sustaining adequate and safe drinking water, while evaluating how we can provide technical training for self-sustainability.
I think the greatest impact we had was listening to the needs of the local people in hopes of providing a better future. Many of our questions and suggestions have gotten them to think about how they may be able to make improvements on their own. We will maintain communication with the communities in order to monitor the effectiveness of our projects and will continue to test the water and soil quality annually for the next five years. With these expeditions we estimate we will directly benefit more than 3,000 community members with technical training and indirectly affect more than 10,000 with development improvements.
The most lasting impact was meeting the orphans at the school for disabled children. The dedication of the staff at the clinics and the schools was inspirational. They are devoted to finding the best solutions for their patients and students. Our future impact should make big differences in their quality of life