The Ichupa Upcycle Project - Annual Report - October 2019

ZAM
NAMOTOSI
Before I met Michał, I was driving past North Primary School here in Mbale and I
saw some strange design in front of the buildings. I parked my car, and walked over
to the fence just to be sure of what I was actually seeing. At first I didn’t know what it
was, but once I saw water taps I knew then that these structures were for water. I
didn’t know anything more about the Project back then, until I met with a friend
who donated his plastic bottles for the tanks. Then after the first interaction I had
with Michal and learning more about the
Ichupa Upcycle Project, from there I fell in
love and kept interacting more and more with
the events that unfolded next.
kept coming up to ask him what exactly he was doing as he was putting up the walls
on each of these tanks, how did he learn this method, and how they can learn more.
Peter went on to express, “that in the past we used the bricks, but never created
something like this. Ever since Nicholas trained us in using this skill I keep thinking
what else can I build. I am happy about this project because we received knowledge
and a new skill we never knew. The project
has been helpful in providing us a living
wage, and helping us pay for schools fees.
Our families are very happy.”
To my surprise, actually as I speak now, what
began as a conversation around a table has
turned into twelve new beautiful water tanks
across four major health centers in Mbale
District. A few weeks back, I received the
c h a n c e t o v i s i t t h e s e c o m m u n i t i e s
surrounding these health centers, and I
remember that the whole experience moved
me as I remember first discussing this project
to now seeing it actually happening.
I think it’s lovely to see how the Ichupa
Upcycle Project has brought change into the
lives of the youth who have been trained by
Engineer Nicholas to take up this role of
building and learning a new skill. I also got the opportunity to speak with several of
the builders that are now a part of Nicholas’ task-force. The majority are
construction workers that have worked with him since the beginning of the Project,
and some that joined recently as all four sites began building at the same time.
As I spoke to one of them, Peter, the leader of the site, he told me that the
community of Busiu was first and foremost really excited to see these tanks. They
Director of Community Development, The Ichupa Upcycle Project
Another builder, a senior six vocation
student, said that he would love to stay with
the Ichupa Upcycle Project even if he gets
an opportunity to go back to school. He
never in his life built anything before until
Engineer Nicholas found him working with
his father at their hardware shop. He told
me that at first he was surprised because he
has never even built a house before but
through training he learned quickly and
can now build tanks and other Structures.
We also interacted with community
members, many of them women, when
visiting Busiu’s maternity ward. Although the
hospital has a borehole, whenever there is a breakdown they had to travel long
distances around the community in search of water. They said it is true that there
are some wells, but most of the wells are unprotected and contaminated, but
because of scarcity they have no choice but to bring this water back. The same was
echoed in Namawanga Sub-County, where we had a community member tell us that
when it comes to childbirth “water is a necessity that cannot be debated about.”
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