Project Status



Project Type:  Borehole Well and Hand Pump

Regional Program: Western Uganda WaSH Program

Impact: 405 Served

Project Phase:  In Service - Oct 2018

Functionality Status:  Functional

Last Checkup: 03/11/2024

Project Features


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Community Profile

Most people in Kyamudikya Community spend as long as an hour to travel the more than a mile distance to an unprotected well to collect water each day. There is a source for safe water, but it is too far away for half of the people living in the community.

"Due to long distances moved to access safe water people resort to using water from the open water source for domestic work," Mr. Simon Kabura said.

Families haul the water home in plastic jerricans and then store it in the same containers in the household. The unclean containers and open water source pose a serious health risk to the community.

Fewer than half of the households we observed have latrines and/or bathing rooms. However, the general attitude of the community towards hygiene and sanitation is positive. They seem to understand the importance of good sanitation and hygiene through lack proper knowledge on how to ensure proper hygiene.

The community’s predominant activity is agriculture and some few families rear animals, like cattle and goats. Every day people in this village wake up at around 6am. The men go to directly to work their gardens and women prepare the children to go to school before joining the garden work. They work until about noon when they break to eat leftover food from dinner as lunch.

In most cases, women start doing household chores like preparing dinner, collecting firewood, and fetching water after lunch. Meanwhile, the men go to graze animals and find water for them to drink if it is the dry season. During the rainy season, both go back in the garden to either plant, weed or harvest.

Then on their way home, they collect firewood, water, and foodstuffs to prepare for supper.

In this village supper is the main meal of the day, hence it is given a lot of attention. Preparing some meals takes more than four hours depending on the distances to the water sources, type of food, size of the family, the nature of the cooking equipment, fuel used and the weather conditions.

As a result, most households end going to sleep late in the night - 10pm at the earliest.

Here’s what we’re going to do about it:

Training

Training’s main objectives are the use of latrines and observing proper hygiene practices since these goals are inherently connected to the provision of clean water. Open defecation, water storage in unclean containers and the absence of hand-washing are all possible contaminants of a household water supply. Each participating village must achieve Open Defecation Free status (defined by one latrine per household), prior to the pump installation for a shallow hand-dug well.

This social program includes the assignment of one Community Development Officer (CDO) to each village. The CDO encourages each household to build an ideal homestead that includes: a latrine, hand-washing facility, a separate structure for animals, rubbish pit and drying rack for dishes.

We also implement the Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach with each of our village partners. This aims to improve the sanitation and hygiene practices and behaviors of a village. During these sessions, village leaders naturally emerge and push the community to realize that the current practices of individual households – particularly the practice of open defecation– are not only unhealthy but affect the entire village. CLTS facilitates a process in which community members realize the negative consequences of their current water, sanitation and hygiene behaviors and are inspired to take action. Group interactions are frequent motivators for individual households to build latrines, use the latrines and demand that other households do the same.

New Borehole

This new borehole is an exciting opportunity for the people of Kyamudikya!

We are also rehabilitating an existing hand-dug well with the community. Go here to learn more about it.

Note: The GPS coordinates for this project are not exact. We will have a precise location as soon as the water point construction is finished!

Improved Sanitation

The aim is that all households own an improved latrine. Many households do not use a latrine but use the bush. Due to open defecation, feces are spread all over the village. This leads to waterborne diseases and contamination of groundwater and surface water. Our aim is that the community is able to live a healthy life free of preventable diseases. We endeavor that at the end of our presence in the community, people will have both access to sustainable, clean water and access to sanitation. We have now organized families to form digging groups for latrine construction, and empowered them with tools to use.


This project is a part of our shared program with The Water Trust. Our team is pleased to provide the reports for this project (edited for clarity) thanks to the hard work of our friends in Uganda.

Project Updates


October, 2018: Kyamudikya Community Project Complete

A clean water well has been drilled in Kyamudikya Community, Uganda! Community members have also attended training sessions during which they worked together to make a development action plan. They are working to build new facilities, tools, and habits that will improve living standards in Kyamudikya.

Training

There were over 100 people involved in analyzing issues affecting Kyamudikya Community.

We led the community in identifying the root causes of common problems and how they affect the quality of life. They discussed who is most affected by these issues, and then developed an action plan to handle these issues.

By leading the community through these issues affecting health, hygiene, and sanitation, they came to the realization that they have the tools needed to solve them. They realized they can construct latrines by themselves, and came up with an action plan to guide the entire community in this process.

Our team has scheduled follow-ups and more training sessions to achieve 100% sanitation coverage with every household having a latrine, handwashing station, bathing shelter, and drying racks. This cannot be achieved without a continuous relationship.

Community members are also trained on:

- maintenance and operation of water point

- fecal-oral route (describing the chain of events that can cause food and water to be contaminated by feces)

- hygiene practices

- sanitation ladder how it is connected to groundwater pollution

- the gender task analysis, and

- water and sanitation committee roles and responsibilities of each member, and their responsibility for the operation and maintenance of the water point, including financial management

"Sanitation improvement is a key to creating a healthy life," said Christine Asiimwe.

Topisita with her grandchildren at her home.

Topisita is a 92-year-old woman who takes care of her six grandchildren.

During training, Topisita and her neighbors came together in to map out their health risks, such as diseases from open defecation. Topisita realized that she had a house without a latrine, and she and her grandchildren had been using the bathroom out in the open for years. When Topisita realized this was jeopardizing the health of her family and greater community, she asked community members to help her excavate one. A young man named Geoffrey volunteered, and she and her grandchildren now have a much better, safer place to use the bathroom.

New Borehole

We worked with the community to determine the best possible sites for this well. Some of the community members were willing to host the drilling technicians, giving them a place to sleep and food to eat. Many of them were there each day to watch the drilling.

When it came time to build the cement well pad, community members went out and found fine sand and water to mix the cement. After the cement platform dried, a stainless steel Consallen was installed and is now flowing with clean water.

Pump installation

Before this borehole, Topisita and her neighbors had to walk about four kilometers to fetch clean water from a well in another village. However, that broke down and Topisita and her grandchildren had to resort to dirty open water sources.

Topisita is now very happy to have access to clean water. She had lived 92 years without clean water nearby.

"For a long time, we had been sharing water with animals," remembered Mr. Kyamanywa.

"We are so glad for having gotten safe, clean water in our village."




July, 2018: Kyamudikya Community Project Underway

A severe clean water shortage in Kyamudikya Community drains people’s time, energy, and health. Thanks to your generosity, we’re working to install a clean water point and much more.

Get to know this community through the introduction and pictures we’ve posted, and read about this water, sanitation and hygiene project. We look forward to reaching out with more good news!




Project Photos


Project Type

Abundant water is often right under our feet! Beneath the Earth’s surface, rivers called aquifers flow through layers of sediment and rock, providing a constant supply of safe water. For borehole wells, we drill deep into the earth, allowing us to access this water which is naturally filtered and protected from sources of contamination at the surface level. First, we decide where to drill by surveying the area and determining where aquifers are likely to sit. To reach the underground water, our drill rigs plunge through meters (sometimes even hundreds of meters!) of soil, silt, rock, and more. Once the drill finds water, we build a well platform and attach a hand pump. If all goes as planned, the community is left with a safe, closed water source providing around five gallons of water per minute! Learn more here!


Contributors

Westgate Elementary School
First Congregational Church of Chatham
Babson College FME Program
Scandinavians for Life
Dalla County Community College District
Our Lady of Fatima School
North Hills School - P.S. 221Q
The Clinton School National Junior Honor Society
Facebook Payments
Hillcrest Baptist Church
Fishing Creek Baptist Church
PS 94 Kings College 3rd Grade
Erin Centre Middle School
North Dunedin Baptist Church
Warren Hills Regional High School
Faith United Methodist Church
Faith Chapel
Kristina's Campaign for Water
Holly and Marlee's Campaign for Water
Mr. Morrow's Water Warriors
Leah 's Campaign for Water
2 individual donor(s)