Rehabilitation Project
Upon completion of the project, our partner in the field reports...
Community Details
When the Living Water Uganda team arrived in Kateete I Village, located in Kenshunga WASH Program Area (WPA), 40 families, local church and community center were desperate for safe drinking water. Families had been reduced to utilizing a large hand-dug well shared with livestock to support all of their water needs. Unsafe hygiene and sanitation practices also disabled the community, as diarrhea and severe dehydration were static and other illnesses including dysentery, typhoid and malaria had further crippled overall community health. The team was pleased to learn of the community’s access to shared communal facilities, pit latrines, pit latrines with slabs and a VIP pit latrine, as the sole use of these facilities coupled with safe drinking water and supported Hygiene Promotion, will help reduce the spread of disease in the area. There are community health workers in the community who also worked with the Living Water team to support the sole use of these facilities and the practice of good hygiene behaviors - which were further addressed by the Living Water team during Hygiene Promotion.
During the well construction, the community established a 10-person (5 men and 5 women) Water Committee who assisted the team with the project when possible and supplied any materials they had available. The Water Committee is responsible for management and maintenance of the improved water point, and is working through participation in planning and contribution of an Operation and Maintenance (O&M) fund. This group was established to take care of day to day management of O&M, to set tariffs with water users and administration of the water point. The committee will also collect 1,000 Ugandan Shillings, equivalent to $0.40 USD, monthly to help support future repair and maintenance needs. Living Water Uganda will continue to provide technical support for the Water Committee to help empower them to carry out management of the water point. Training in community mobilization and action planning was conducted, and will continue to be supported for the next two years by Nyabushozi Community Engagement Co-coordinator and was attended by 37 people (17 men and 15 women). The goal is to equip the Water Committee with the skills necessary to manage the O&M, community relationships and to continue to influence monetary monthly contributions from the community. Kiruhura District local government is currently being engaged by Living Water Uganda to provide technical back up and financial support to the sub-county to monitor operations of the Water Committees in their constituency. They will also be responsible for planning and co- financing training of Hand Pump Mechanics (HPMs), plumbers and mansion. They will work in close collaboration with the Living Water Uganda conduct periodic water quality analysis to monitor the physical, chemical and bacteriological characteristic of the water sample. This is important because fluctuation in water quality is detrimental to community financing of the water source caretaker that has been identified for this source. The water source caretaker is responsible for day-to-day management and administration of water point. Specifically, the caretaker will carry out the following roles:
• Organize community for orderly use
• Maintain accurate list of water users
• Clean the surrounding of the facilities
• Undertake minor repairs
• Collect O&M fees
The Water Committee will train the water source caretaker in preventive maintenance as well as empower him to check against vandalism.
Hygiene Promotion
The Hygiene Promotion team conducted Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) baseline survey feed back meetings in this community. The meetings were attended by the Sub-County officials, community leaders and community members. During the meetings, the team communicated key baseline findings, likely challenges that will deter community members from ascending the sanitation ladder as well as the hygiene promotion strategies and approaches that will be employed by Living Water Uganda program. Altogether, 37people (18 women and 19 men) attended. As result of the meetings, there has been increased participation of the different stakeholders in Living Water hygiene promotion activities. Using community health strategy approach, community structures such as Village Health Teams (VHTs), health assistants and cluster heads were trained in UMOJA-hygiene promotion approach which integrates Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation (PHAST) and clustering system taking into consideration the strength of each approach to reinforce the hygiene promotion work. This community health promotion structures are being equipped with CLTS tools like community mapping, transect walk, feces calculation and health costing methods to trigger communities into taking collective actions to eliminate open defecations in their communities. Verification visits by the Hygiene Promotion team, community health promotion structures and the Sub-County staff shows significant improvement in hygiene and sanitation practices in this community.
Community Member Interview
"Our village has been constantly plagued by typhoid and other water-related diseases arising from drinking dirty water," shared 40-year old community member and subsistence farmer, Merisi. "Thank you for this well. I think the number of people suffering from such diseases will reduce significantly."
