Nakivale Refugee Settlement, located in Uganda, is home to over 100,000 refugees fleeing violence in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (“DRC”), Somalia, Burundi, and Sudan. Nakivale’s already stressed water and sanitation resources are further pressured every day as more refugees arrive from DRC because of war.

Watsane is a locally grown water and sanitation organization bringing dignity and safer conditions to their neighbors, starting with the Emergency Latrine Pilot.

We have identified high need locations and secured (almost all) of the materials! Your help will allow us to fund transport to get our supplies to their final destination, and pay laborers to install and maintain the facilities. This will be our proof of concept to show larger organizations our capabilities.

I will be sending all funds raised to Watsane directly. We thank you deeply for any and all support.

Jean Baptiste Ntirenganya & Paulette Schuster

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How did Watsane come to be?

In 2009, my former colleague Jean Baptiste came to Nakivale with his family from the Congo. He is an engineer and water and sanitation specialist. We met when I was working at a water filter start up in Uganda in 2019 and kept in touch.

Jean Baptiste has been active in securing clean water and sanitation in his community and in June 2025, he founded the Watsane Uganda Organization (“Watsane”) to increase water, sanitation, and hygene for the 46,350 new Congolese arrivals to Nakivale. As a registered Community Organization in Nakivale, Watsane is uniquely positioned to create direct impact.