Uganda, Africa

Sports Outreach International (SOI) which is located in Charlotte, NC, took a mission team to Uganda in Jan 2011. The mission team consisted of 32 members, broken up into 3 teams Medical, Sports and Construction. SOI has been working in northern Uganda since 1999 in a city called Gulu.

According to SOI Gulu Director, Aloysius Kyazze ” Our vision for northern Uganda is to bring Christ in a more practical way, so the people can see the compassionate hand of God, and that they can be restored, spiritually, psychologically, emotionally and physically.”

Over the last two decades, civil war has brought northern regions of Uganda to its knees. During our 2 days of working in very crude conditions in Gulu, the only water source was a spring running nonstop into muddy ditches. This is where the people get their drinking water from.

The filter kits supplied by Water4Life Ministry were assembled in the slums of Kampala and given to the people in Gulu. These filters will save countless lives from sickness and disease due to the dirty unfiltered water they are forced to drink every day. The children are especially susceptible to sickness because of the parasites and bacteria found in the water.

Helping to provide safe drinking water solutions, livestock breeding, farming, vocational training, and sports are just a few of the ways SOI works in the communities in which they serve. SOI partners with churches in Uganda, as well as other like-minded organizations such as Water4Life Ministry to help serve the needs of the people. Clean drinking water is a matter of life and death in Uganda.

Water4Life Ministry’s early strategy the first half of 2011, is to partner with as many mission organizations as possible, supplying the first mission team with each organization with a few of the life saving Sawyer water filters. Then get feedback as to how many filters each mission organization can deploy in the world for the second half of 2011.