The Ayin Project taught me to be excited for change, personal growth and improvement. Generally, I don’t like change. I like to have a routine. I like knowing what to expect and possible outcomes. I like familiar environments and tastes and smells. If something changes, I’m thrown out of whack and pushed from my comfort zone. The Ayin Project taught me that this was okay. That it was necessary.

Widespread knowledge of WASH is one of TAP Uganda team’s most important goals. The team is working to figure out what people already know, and how they may educate people further. Community collaboration, and the sharing of knowledge, makes individuals “part of the solution to their own problem.”

An integral part of bringing change is having the capacity to accept new ideas and act upon them. This is precisely what several villages in Uganda have done when introduced to the idea of adding water stations to their schools – an idea presented by TAP’s Uganda team. A member of this team, Sulman Muhanguzi (Sule), recounted how proud he was of the change he has been able to witness.

Shannon Long has been a key player in data management and its correlation to positive change by educating the Ugandan team on how to utilize convenient geospatial software to organize their data. 

74% of the world has access to clean, usable, safely managed water. Within the United States, 97% of people have access to serviceable water. However, in Uganda, only 18% of people have access to safely managed water. It is this striking difference in percentages that enticed Joshua Kurtz to create The Ayin Project (TAP).

It isn’t everyday that the youth of our world are given a voice and the chance to impact society on a global scale. The growth portrayed when given an outlet for their voice and a purpose to their passion invokes much more than statistics or data on a paper.