We were astonished as Diane Brask’s story of her encounter in Gulu, Uganda hit our ears.
I saw a skeletal woman lying on the side of the road. I asked her if I could bring her to the hospital, she replied, “No, I just came from the hospital, they had no water, and sent me away.”
The hospital in Gulu, with over 500 beds serving 1200-1500 per day, was out of fresh water. For hospitals, no water means no care.
Famine and drought put millions at risk of starvation in East Africa. Not only is Uganda in need of fresh water and food, they need the ability to sustain a reliable ecosystem to fight the growing famine amidst a high influx of refugees coming into the country from South Sudan. The United Nations humanitarian coordinator, Stephen O’ Brian, stated East Africa’s condition is the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis since World War II.
“We stand at a critical point in our history,” says O’Brian. “Without collective and coordinated global efforts, people will simply starve to death.”
It does not have to be this way. With deep wells, irrigation and other farming strategies, cultivating a thriving land is more than possible.
Read How Harvest Water Africa Brought Sustainable Water to Gulu Hospital.