Most people in this part of Nyakarongo Community collect their water from an open water source.
A lot of time is spent on accessing safe water in other parts of the community. As a result, they only use safe water sparingly for drinking and limited cooking purposes - if they have any at all. For bathing and general hygiene purposes, dirty water is used which will cause skin rashes. The open well is contaminated by pollutants from nearby farms, human waste, and animals.
Fewer than half of households have latrines. Most of the latrines in this village are ordinary unlined pits latrines. They are mainly contracted with locally available materials, including mud.
The community largely understands the importance of sanitation and hygiene but they don’t give it a priority since the impact on their health is not always direct compared to other household necessities.
"As a community, we are ready and pledge total support," Mr. Perez Asiimwe said about working in partnership to improve sanitation in the community and rehabilitate the nearby borehole.
Nyakarongo is located at the border of Kiryandongo and Masindi district. The community’s predominant activity is farming. A day in this village starts with farming in gardens. Most people eat the leftover food from dinner as breakfast - the parents as they go to the farm and the children as they walk to school.
During sunny days, the women or female siblings who are no longer going to school come back home to prepare lunch on sunny days. They return home with firewood, water, and food for the day's cooking. The common types of food include cassava, potatoes, and maize. Millet bread with meat is a delicacy for special meals just like many other communities in western Uganda.
After lunch, the ladies remain at home to prepare for supper. In this village supper is the main meal of the day hence 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, fuel used, and the weather conditions.
Meanwhile, their male counterparts are either take on informal day-labor jobs for pay or run a small business in the trading center. Others go for socializing (drinking alcohol and gambling). Christianity is the dominant religion so on Sundays people take a rest from the daily routines to go to church.
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 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.
Rehabilitated Well
We are rehabilitating a hand-dug well for the community to ensure everyone has access to safe water! Not only that, but we are doing two other projects in the same area: restoring water to another well and also constructing a new one. Learn more here and here.
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.
