A Ugandan social enterprise making and installing low-cost water filters for schools and communities.
At a glance What it is: A social enterprise (a story, not a build-it-yourself) that designs, makes and installs its own water-filter systems. · Origin: Uganda — founded by Saudah Birungi. · Maturity: Scaled by one operator, reaching dozens of schools and institutions (the organisation’s own figures, not independent replication). · How it runs: Point-of-use filtration using moringa seeds as a natural coagulant — designed so a school gets safe water without having to boil it over firewood. · Note on figures: Tusafishe’s reach and water-quality numbers are its own or from single news reports and don’t fully agree, so we tell the story without printing them as verified fact.
The story. Tusafishe — “let us clean” in Swahili — is a Ugandan social enterprise, founded by Saudah Birungi, that designs, builds, and installs low-cost water filters for schools, institutions, and households. In a country where much of the population still lacks reliably safe water, its systems deliver clean water at a school using multi-stage filtration and moringa seeds as a natural coagulant, from trees the team plants alongside each installation. This is a story, not a build-it-yourself guide: Tusafishe manufactures and installs the systems and trains local women to install and maintain them.
The problem it solves. Across Uganda, a large share of people still lack reliably safe drinking water, and much “improved” water is contaminated again before it is drunk — waterborne disease hits schoolchildren especially hard. Boiling water over firewood, or powered treatment, costs fuel and money that rural schools do not have. Tusafishe’s answer is a filtration system sized for an institution, delivering safe water at the point of use.
How it works. Water passes through the filter’s stages; the moringa-seed coagulant helps particles clump and settle, and the media remove the rest, producing clear water at the point of use — the aim being safe water without boiling, so a school is not buying fuel to treat it. The systems are sized for a school or a remote site. Tusafishe designs, manufactures, installs and services the units, and trains local women as installers. The specific engineered system is Tusafishe’s own product; the underlying ideas — slow filtration and moringa as a coagulant — are long-established, open water-treatment knowledge.
What to expect — and what NOT to expect. Reach (as the organisation reports it): Tusafishe’s filters are in dozens of schools and institutions, and a 2025 programme extended them across several more districts and trained more community members as installers. We don’t print exact counts here on purpose — the figures come from Tusafishe’s own materials and single news reports that don’t fully agree with one another, so until the organisation confirms them we tell the story without the numbers. Water-quality claims (the company’s own): Tusafishe describes its filters as removing nearly all pathogens and sediment — these are the company’s own descriptions, not independent test results. What it is NOT: an installed product-and-service, not something a household builds alone; it depends on Tusafishe or trained installers for supply and upkeep, and it does not treat industrial or chemically contaminated water. The honest open question, as with any institutional-water programme, is whether schools keep the filters maintained and the media replaced after a funded installation ends — Tusafishe’s trained-local-installer model is built to address this.
Where it has been used. Uganda — Tusafishe’s filters are installed in dozens of schools and institutions, with local women trained to install and maintain them; a 2025 programme extended the systems across several more districts and planted moringa trees at the sites. (Counts are the organisation’s own or from single news reports, and are not independently verified.)
How it continues. Founded by Saudah Birungi, Uganda. Maintained now by Tusafishe (manufacture, install, service) and trained local women and community members; schools own the installed systems. The deployments are recent and often grant-funded; the honest open question is whether schools keep the systems running once a funded installation is over. Independent long-term follow-up data is not yet available.
Used a Tusafishe system, or run one at your school? Tell us how it went — how it performed, whether it was still running a year on, whether the water stayed clean, what you’d change, and roughly where and when. We want the honest result, including what didn’t work. Your contact details stay private; we read and check every report before anything is published, and we’ll never publish a detail you’ve asked us to keep private.
Sources: SEED enterprise profile (seed.uno); the 2025 schools programme, reported via allAfrica (allafrica.com); the Bayer Social Innovation Award (bayer.com); tusafishe.org; national water-access context: Uganda Ministry WASH Adaptation Plan. Reach figures on these sources are the organisation’s own or single-report and are not independently verified.
