UniWater Education Limited

Many thanks go out to Robert Bruce who has compiled a number of test questions for our borehole drilling module.  Every donation of time is much appreciated.  These are the things that make our program enriched – when people share their experience with others learning the trade.

We are pleased to share our newly released professionally designed annual report for 2016 which includes a message from the director, the year in review, annual achievements, financial updates and looking forward – to next year and beyond.

UniWater Education’s 2016 Annual Report (PDF)

Courses offered:

• Low-­cost sanitation
• Constructing safe and sustainable groundwater wells
• Agricultural adaptations for climate change: rain water harvesting and irrigation water management approaches
• Monitoring, evaluation and learning
• Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) for monitoring and evaluation
• Geographic Information System (GIS) introduction
• Quantum Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Courses start in January, please see details for more information: Mzuzu University Workshop SC 2016-2017.pdf.

While Sokoine University of Agriculture in Morogoro, Tanzania is all set to start their first program in their MSc in Hydrogeology and Water Resources Management, the program may be stalled due to a lack of scholarships for students.  There is an abundance of students registered for the program, but without scholarships they are unable to register for the classes.  If the minimum number of students (five) have not registered by the end of October, the program will be cancelled for this year.  Each student requires a scholarship of $5,000US for each of two years.  Donors will receive an immediate receipt, which is tax-deductible in Canada. Please donate here if you are able.

We are very happy to announce that the first set of boxes (containing books) sent from Calgary, Canada have arrived in Morogoro, Tanzania! See the image below for a visual summary of the journey the boxes took to reach their destination. A big thanks again to the volunteers (left) who took park in the Camel Caravan! – our method of identifying books/equipment from places of donation and finding volunteers to transport them to the African Universities taking part in our program. Learn more on our Camel Caravan page.

Our first bunch of books are currently on their way to Tanzania!  This very exciting as it is another milestone for our organization – now we can say that we actually do this and not just intend to do this.  We should know in about 4 days whether they arrived in Tanzania.

This is the generous group of volunteers from Hope for the Nation who are escorting the four boxes of reference books to Tanzania.

For the record…. 4 boxes consisting of 60 books in total (34 used and 26 new) will have travelled 20,500 km…. Calgary to Edmonton to Los Angeles to Qatar to Arusha (Tz) to Morogoro (Tz).

We are pleased to share our newly released professionally designed annual report for 2015 which includes a message from the director, the year in review, annual achievements, financial updates and looking forward – to next year and beyond.

UniWater Education’s 2015 Annual Report (PDF)

UniWater presented a 3 minute pitch to a group of 9 panelists at the SNEF Lion’s Den Finals….unfortunately, we did not make the top 3 but we certainly came away from the experience with many excellent ideas. Check out our presentation!

According to the IWA in a research study conducted in 2012 – 2014, funded by the governments of USA, UK and Australia,

“Many developing economies are lacking significant numbers of water professionals, and the necessary knowledge, experience and specialist skills to meet the rising demand for water and sanitation services.  Low levels of access to and inadequate coverage of tertiary education institutes is a significant bottleneck to meeting human resources demands; female professionals are underrepresented, particularly in technical fields; operation and maintenance of water and sanitation systems are chronically neglected, with human resources inadequately allocated; education and skills development requirements have not been appropriately assessed; and the dependence on communities, volunteers and semi-skilled workers in rural areas is not sustainable.”

Rough estimates indicate that in 2015, 60,000 technical professionals are in need in Africa. While working diligently to address these issues by working with existing universities in Sub-Sahara Africa, we anticipate we will only be able to scratch the surface of the need.  What is required is a paradigm shift in how education is addressed in the region.

The entire paper can be viewed here:
An-Avoidable-Crisis-Publication_WashGaps2015.pdf

The Sustainable Development Goals were rolled out last September with Goal 6:  “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”  directly pertaining to our work.  It includes these targets:

6.1  By 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all.

6.4  By 2030, substantially increase water-use efficiency across all sectors and ensure sustainable withdrawals and supply of freshwater to address water scarcity and substantially reduce the number of people suffering from water scarcity.

6.a  By 2030, expand international cooperation and capacity-building support to developing countries in water- and sanitation-related activities and programs, including water harvesting, desalinization,  water efficiency, wastewater treatment, recycling and reuse technologies

6.b  Support and strengthen the participation of local communities in improving water and sanitation management.

In addition, there are also the cross-cutting themes that are influenced by what we do, namely:

1.1  eradicate extreme poverty

2.3  small-scale food producers

9.1  infrastructure

9.a  sustainable and resilient infrastructure

13.1  resilience and adaptive capacity

17.1  domestic resource mobilization

17.9  capacity-building