Water and Sanitation Initiatives

Rotary Club members understand that, water is essential for a wide range of human activities, including drinking, cooking, bathing, and irrigation, and the lack of clean water is linked to preventable health problems such as dehydration, diarrhea, bacterial or parasitic infection, typhoid, and a long list of other gastrointestinal disorders. Communities that rely on contaminated water live with wide-spread illnesses in the population that adversely affect school attendance of the children, markedly decrease productivity of the adults, and contribute to increased mortality levels.

 

Implementation of this global grant started in March 2016 in collaboration with four US Rotary clubs (Debuque IA; Minnetonka; Coronado, CA; and San Diego, CA), and with support from Quench and Connect. The total funding for the grant was USD 40,250.00

 

The project is 98% completed with monitoring and evaluation, and branding required for two schools; Onwards and Upwards Secondary School, Wakiso District and Lakeside S.S, Masaka District.

The following activities were carried out; established water user committees in the four schools, constructed four boreholes - one for each school. The benefiting schools included;

 

 

The objective is to reduce disease, teach hygiene and sanitation practices, and to improve the appeal of the school to students and the surrounding community. It is a collaboration between the Rotary club of Debuque IA; and the Rotary Club of Kampala Central with a Global Grant funding of $41,420. The benefiting schools include:

 

 

We are all aware that access to drinking water means that the source is less than 1km away from its place of use and that it is possible to reliably obtain at least 20 litres per member of a household or student per day. Evidently, students in all the schools above have a major impediment in as far as access to drinking water is concerned, having to trek long distances in excess of 1km for water. The dry spells in the Northern region of Uganda make matters even worse with the drying up of the available sources.

 

Typhoid and TB diseases are attributed to lack of access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation, which increases the vulnerability of the students. The risk of the girls is evidently even higher.

 

Therefore, the need for clean sources of water in the schools above cannot be over emphasized.

For improved study concentration and better performances, the students must have access to clean water with reduced time of access to the sources; this will not only improve their academic performance but also reduce greatly the disease prevalence (water borne diseases) and therefore improved, and tremendous changes in their health conditions.

 

The following activities will be carried out: establishment of water user committees in the four schools, construction of four borehole wells, one at each of the schools

 

 

The water interventions have been through provision of one borehole well every Rotary Year in each of the villages of Ntinda, Gimbo, Muyenje and Luggi, all in Lukwanga Parish. This started in the Rotary year 2014/2015 with great support from Elbeltoft Rotary Club in Denmark, which provides funding to the tune of $10,000 every rotary year.