Robin Waugh has successfully completed his one year as Director of the Masindi Project and will be heading back to Scotland this month. We all owe a great debt to Rob for his creative and tenacious approach to solving problems and keeping the program on track this past year. By the time of his departure, near 10,000 citizens of Masindi will be enjoying the benefits of clean water, improved sanitation and hygiene knowledge as a result of Rob’s efforts. Like his team on the ground in Masindi, Rob has served as an employee of Busoga Trust, our development partner.

Ned Morgan will be taking over from Rob starting July 1. Since graduating from George Washington University in 2006, Ned has worked in international development with most of his time spend on projects in Uganda and Kenya. Congratulations Rob and welcome Ned!

Emily Polet, who is completing her degree this year at Rochester College in Michigan, raised the funds for a three month internship in Uganda with our development partner Busoga Trust. Emily found us and worked with our board member Jeff Kaplan and Masindi’s Operations Manager Rob Waugh to craft a high impact project for her summer in Uganda. She’s working to help Busoga Trust understand and share best practices across their different sites. She will be spending a good part of her summer at BTA’s site in Masindi. Emily recently took on an expanded role to work with the Busoga Trust America website. Being on location in Masindi for much of the Summer, she should be able to keep our website fresh with content from the field. Welcome Emily and thanks for all your help.

The 15th Masindi well was installed (village of Nyakabale) during the second week of April. Our goal for our first year of operation (ended March 31, 2009) was 15 wells. Robin Waugh and his predecessor Matt Fay and they team they build deserve huge credit for overcoming a host of obstacles in our first year and staying on track. With an average 500 people served by each well, this first year effort has resulted in near 7500 people with fresh water and access to better sanitation and hygiene education. A heartfelt congratulations to the team in Masindi!

The team in Masindi recently began work on our 19th site, the village of Kifuruta. Stay tuned for technical details and a village page on our site for Kifuruta.