Rehabilitation Project
Upon completion of the project, our partner in the field reports...
Community Details
Since program inception in 2009, Living Water Uganda has increasingly realized the need for operation and maintenance (O&M) to improve the performance efficiency and sustainability of the existing and future infrastructures. O&M fee collection and proper management has been emphasized, increasing the credibility of investments made, the functioning of the services and the well being of community population. The implementation of O&M has a far reaching social, community, gender, financial, institutional, political, managerial and environmental impact as well. This program’s O&M approach is to equip communities to be financially capable to manage their own O&M needs, through long-term relational engagement with Living Water Uganda’s Sustainability Program Coordinator.
For this particular borehole, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) has been signed with this community of 400 families clearly outlining the roles, responsibilities as well as the period of engagement and exit. An equal gender 10 member water user committee has been created and a bank account opened for O&M saving.
Hygiene Promotion
The Living Water team involved community health workers and local leaders in an assessment to generate a demand for improving hygiene and sanitation behaviors, utilizing approaches that aim for a complete or “total hygiene” behavior change, focusing on safe disposal of feces and addressing issues of hand washing and disease prevention, home treatment of drinking water, improved food hygiene, and the use of rubbish pits. This program (based of the initial assessment) operates on the premise that as communities gain awareness of their water, sanitation, and hygiene situations through participatory activities, they are empowered to develop and carry out their own plans to improve their own hygiene situations. In villages/areas where open defecation presents the greatest challenge, a hybrid of Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) and other behavior change approaches were used to raise awareness of the risk that
open defecation presents and to reinforce a natural sense of ‘disgust’ about this practice. The hygiene promotion team and Christian witness team helped community members to analyze their own sanitation profile including the extent of open defecation and the spread of fecal-oral contamination that detrimentally affects the whole community. A variety of CLTS tools including defecation calculation, water in a bottle experiment-diagram focus group discussions and the map, transect walk, community mapping, defecation and shake were used. Continuous monitoring and evaluation will help assess the effectiveness of the approach. The HP team also facilitated school-based hygiene promotion in schools in all primary and secondary schools located in communities served through water access. This component of the program will begin with a baseline test of knowledge of school children in grades P5-P7. Based on these initial test scores, children will be chosen from each P5-P7classroom to become peer trainers (at a ratio of 10:1). They will be equipped as hygiene trainers, utilizing a peer training or child-to-child (CTC) approach with younger children and peers, and also in their households and communities (World Bank, 2005; Peal, Evans, and van der Voorden, 2010, p. 61). Hygiene curriculum will be customized to the needs of the students based on the results of their baseline tests, and lessons will be linked with their home and community life to help knowledge translate to action and behavior. Follow-up tests will be administered six months following the completion of the training program to ascertain the growth of knowledge in target age groups, and again at the end of the two-year planned program intervention. The HP School Coordinator will facilitate school-based hygiene promotion in schools in all primary and secondary schools located in communities served through water access. This component of the program will begin with a baseline test of knowledge of school children in grades P5-P7. Based on these initial test scores, children will be chosen from each P5-P7 classroom to become peer trainers (at a ratio of 10:1). They will be equipped as hygiene trainers, utilizing a peer training or child-to-child (CTC) approach with younger children and peers, and also in their households and communities (World Bank, 2005; Peal, Evans, van der Voorden, 2010, p. 61). Hygiene curriculum will be customized to the needs of the students based on the results of their baseline tests, and lessons will be linked with their home and community life to help knowledge translate to action and behavior. Follow-up tests will be administered six months following the completion of the training program to ascertain the growth of knowledge in target age groups, and again at the end of the two-year planned program intervention.
Community Member Interview
Community member and subsistence farmer, Keith, met with the Living Water team and shared, "I thank God that I have lived until now to witness his goodness, mercy and love. The many years I have lived in this community, I have witnessed young and old people suffer and die of sanitation related diseases. I strongly believe this new borehole, if well maintained, will save us from such suffering."
