Meet Annescar

Clean Water for an Inspiring Young Woman in Uganda

There’s a children’s book titled Rosie Revere, Engineer that I read to my niece sometimes. The story begins with…

   This is the story of Rosie Revere,

   who dreamed of becoming a great engineer.

   In Lila Greer’s classroom at Blue river Creek, 

   young Rosie sat shyly, not daring to speak.

In this story, the author describes how Rosie overcomes failure from the encouragement of an Aunt that helps her to believe in herself. Her aunt continues to encourage her to create, build and make things better for the world.

But the story I would like to tell today is not about a fictitious (although inspiring) young woman. It is about Annescar, a young woman from Nyakyera, Uganda who is also inspiring.

We all have our challenges, but her’s was difficult to say the least.

She, like Rosie, dreamt of becoming an engineer, but the hours it took to fetch the days water made her late for school, where she was often punished. In addition, the walk itself was threatened both by snakes and sexual assault.

Because of the water crisis in her village, Annescar’s dreams began to fade.

However, one day she woke up to a village in a flurry of action. Workers arrived at the village to begin digging trenches and building tap stands. She soon asked what was going on and heard that a water charity based in Canada was coming to build a clean water system.

That was just over 10 years ago.

After a clean water system was installed near her home, her father was able to purchase cows. This was all possible because he no longer had to pay for medical bills, which were once spent on his sick family members from drinking unclean water.