WATER AND SANITATION
Looking back in the start in the early 2009, there was a big water crisis in Lwengo community, people used to get water from dirty wells in swamps, which also covered long distances from homes. Girls were on risks of rape and defilement, high chances of missing school, increased non communicable diseases due to poor home sanitation, hygiene was very poor. There were also reported cases that some people died while fetching water from these sources.
The other big challenge with such water is that animals like cows and other wild ones share the same sources, poor waste disposal and human waste all collect in the same place and contaminate the water.
Even during rainy seasons still people had no water collecting and storage vessels so the situation had to remain the same but better for the few who could afford that.
Lwerudeso intervened in this situation and started by organising water source cleaning campaigns, giving water jerry cans (20ltrs) on a family basis, then advanced to drums(100ltrs). This helped people reserve water for home use and sanitation improved though it was not sustainable and all families could not be covered. On average a family consisted of seven members who needed more than 20 litres a day. It was not sustainable since these plastic vessels could wear out.
With partnership from Be More, Lwerudeso constructed concrete tanks of 5,000litres in the identified vulnerable families. A tank was determined to be shared by at least five families. Tanks collect clean rain water that has proved to be safe for human consumption. Later there was an advancement to 10,000 ltr water tanks. Currently we have 141 water tanks of 10000 litres each in Lwengo community with one(50,000ltrs) at Lwerudeso Primary School.
There has been much improvement in the livelihood of people health wise but still the problem of water shortage has not been fully eradicated.
As an extension program, Lwerudeso still advocates for more water tanks for those families who have none. We also propose to extract and supply underground water through pumps (boreholes) and water taps to the community because they are more reliable and sustainable in all seasons. The challenge the project still faces with this is finance because there is no defined funding currently for it. We have one borehole at Lwerudeso primary school and is supplying water efficiently for children and other welfare activities of the school.
