Rehabilitation Project
Upon completion of the project, our partner in the field reports...
Community Details
When the Living Water Uganda drill crew arrived to drill a borehole benefitting 504 pupils (243 boys and 261 girls) and 30 households, there was a desperate need for safe drinking water as households and the local school population were depending on three rainwater catchment tanks that would sometimes dry up due to unreliable weather patterns. This forced the community and students to collect water from an unprotected spring located about .45 of a kilometer away from the school to support their immediate water needs. This posed serious health risks and inevitably left many to suffer from diarrhea, cholera and dysentery.
Living Water Uganda not only worked closely with the community and the 10-person (5 men and 5 women) Water Committee, but also partnered with Rushere Catholic Church to focus on fruitful proclamation-teaching people the gospel and demonstrating-showing people what it means to be part of God's kingdom through meeting their spiritual, social, physical and material needs. This church will be empowered to respond to the needs in the community and mobilize the community to respond to its’ own needs. Living Water will train the church leaders in orality and thematic Bible studies to empower them to engage in holistic development.
During the well construction, the community set up a Community Based Maintenance System that is responsible for management and maintenance of the improved water facility and will plan and oversee operation and maintenance by collecting a monthly tariff of 1000 Ugandan Shillings ($0.40 USD). The 10-person (5 men and 5 women) Water User Committee will be lead by a community member, Mr. Danson Gumisiriza, who will serve as the source caretaker and will manage the administration of the water point with a goal of ensuring safe drinking water flows for this generation and the next!
In addition to day-to-day well management, Mr. Danson Gumisiriza will carry out the following roles:
- Organize the community for orderly water use
- Maintain an accurate list of water users
- Clean the surrounding facility areas
- Undertake minor repairs
- Collect O&M fees
The Living Water Uganda team will carry out the following roles:
- Train the water source caretaker in preventative maintenance
- Provide technical back-up support for the WUC for the next two years
- Mobilize and train up trainers and community leaders to follow-up and monitor the water facility
- Monitor functionality of the water source and provide community water governance
- Equip the WUC with necessary skills to adequately manage O&M, relationships and draw admiration from the water end users contributing to O&M
- Institute check and balance systems to ensure transparency and accountability of O&M funds
The local district government will carry out the following roles:
- Provide technical back up and financial support to the sub-Country to monitor operations of the WUC in their constituency
- Responsible for planning and co-financing training of Hand Pump Mechanics (HPMs), plumbers and masons
- Work in close collaboration with Living Water Uganda to conduct periodic water quality analysis to monitor the physical, chemical and bacteriological characteristics of water sample
Hygiene Promotion
The Living Water Nyabushozi Hygiene Promotion employed Child Hygiene and Sanitation Training (CHAST) training to promote adoption of positive hygiene and sanitation behaviors. School Sanitation and Health Clubs, consisting of 15 students and three teachers was formed to foster hygiene promotion. These clubs were equipped with sanitation promotion skills and introduced these newly learned skills to 189 students (119 boys and 70 girls). The club members were given basic training on hygiene and sanitation practice/promotion with the aim of acting as agents of transformation for their immediate communities in terms of sanitation and hygiene. The clubs have now taken the lead in improving hygiene and sanitation in their schools. The club members have discussed and introduced good sanitation practices to the schools, and has been active through various sanitation competitions (music dance and drama, essay writing and school sanitation improvement championships). The School Sanitation Club, through the school management, has established a weekly sanitation day that the club conducts sensitization to the school community at the school assembly.
Community Member Interview
The Living Water team had a wonderful opportunity to meet Ms. Atuhaire Rosette, a 39-year-old woman who had this to say, "We appreciate Living Water International Uganda for supporting us with accessible water. The rainwater catchments we have been using are not very reliable. Therefore, we did not have sufficient water for the growing school population and had to ask our boarding pupils to walk over 500 meters to collect unsafe water from the nearby dam. This water caused a lot of our pupils to suffer from sanitation related diseases. The pupils walking the long distance to fetch water from the dam were also greatly exposed to accidents on the main road. The establishment of a safe water source on our school compound will go a long way in preventing all the above problems."
