What’s In a Name?

What’s in a Name?

Some of you may have noticed our naming for these water projects seems inconsistent, or at the very least confusing. This is because we’ve had to break up the fundraising into different ‘sections’ to be able to raise and send the money over as fast as we can, given the scope of the very large project we’ve been working on. 

We’ve given each smaller section an individual name – usually after a village or cluster of villages. The problem has been that we haven’t always been consistent in our naming scheme. We also haven’t been internally clear between our Canadian and Ugandan offices on which names apply to what schemes. This has caused a headache and likely some confusion for you, the donor. We’ve learned a good lesson. 

Here’s a quick breakdown of the naming structure and a helpful way to think about it.

Kicuzi would be similar to what we refer to as the Greater Vancouver Area.

We turned on taps in Kicuzi Phase 1, which at the time we just called Kicuzi (think: Vancouver). It was the largest portion at the time. Kicuzi Phase 1 (which we just called Kicuzi) turned on in March 2019.

Kicuzi 1a, which was called Kogabi was completed also at the tail end of 2019, with a small extra part of it turning on in the very beginning of 2020 (just as the pandemic hit). On our Project Inventory Page you’ll see this referred to as Kogabi Extension.

Kicuzi 2a, was fundraised for as KOTA, as one of the main villages that we serviced was called Kota (don’t ask me why we often put it in all caps, there was no good reason). Our Ugandan Team mapped it as Akato, as that is another village that this system reached. This would be like a “suburb” of Kicuzi. Then, because of the great response on Giving Tuesday, we did an extension on that system which you’ll see on our map – called the Akato Upper GFS (Kic 2a Ext).

Kicuzi 2b was where the naming really went sideways. Our marketing referred to it often as Muhaha, sometimes as Mahuha (which is the correct way). This is one of the communities it serviced. The proper name for it was Kenyonyi which would be the community it services (the collection of villages). Now, because of people’s generosity we’ve added onto this, Kisabo Village which has Nyamabaare Primary School.

If fundraising goes really well, we have a chance to add another 22 taps to Kabanga. This name is also just one village name of many.

We’ve learned a lot in this process and I’m sorry personally for the confusion that this causes. Sometimes, in an effort to be “simple” we end up making things more complicated.

Thanks for journeying with us, please reach out with any questions.