In April, 2025, a young woman went into labour in the little village of Kanyatsi, in western Uganda. Her pregnancy had not been without problems, and this was early and unexpected. She needed to get to the maternity clinic in Kyarumba, on the other side of the Dubu river, and quickly! The normal procedure would be to phone emergency services, which would send an ambulance to take her to the clinic. Unfortunately, the vehicle bridge that crosses the Dubu has been unable to support any vehicular traffic heavier than a motorbike in months, since the river flooded last May. The ambulance waited for her on the other side of the bridge while she managed to walk the fifteen minutes from her home to meet them. She’s tough; she made it. Mother and babe are both fine. But the reality is that ten small villages, home to about a thousand families with the usual assortment of children, elders, and people with disabilities, are effectively cut off from emergency services until this bridge is replaced.
So this is what we did:
