Success Stories – Page 2 – Africa Water Solutions

Meet Adrian

Clean water is only part of the story in bringing lost lasting health changes to rural communities. To achieve the greatest health benefits, improvement in sanitation and hygiene must be made alongside access to clean water. Karungu is one of the highly water stressed villages in Rubanda District.

Adrian Ruzamaba, 69 years old, and Hope Audria, 67 years live in Karungu village, Mpungu parish, Hamurwa subcounty. They currently stay with 3 of their 10 and five grandchildren. Before receiving the WASH trainings, Adrian and his family used to drink untreated water from the pond that was shared with animals and were in-and-out of hospital due to water borne diseases. Washing hands after visiting the toilet and before eating food was unusual and seemed like wasteful of water wasting, and his grandchildren hardly bathed and suffered from skin infections (dermatitis). Due to old age, it was difficult for Adrian and his wife to travel up and down the hills to fetch water, and therefore their grandchildren often missed school to first fetch water; because of the water scarcity, the grandchildren rarely washed their school uniforms to spare the little water they had, and consequently they would have to wear dirty uniforms to school. The family would sometimes have to pay someone 2,000 Ugshs (52 cents) to fetch a jerrycan of water, which was too costly for them given their economic status.

After continuous interaction and WASH trainings with Adrian’s family, they had the urge to improve on the hygiene and sanitation at their home. They were able to construct a proper bathing shelter and a latrine with a sato pan and a tippy tap, they now understand the benefits of hand washing, use SODIS to treat drinking water, and improved sanitation and hygiene around their home also makes them proud. Their grandchildren no longer fall sick and the money that was spent in treating them is now used to venture in income generating projects.

Clean and safe water means healthy families; more money is saved that they can now spend on education, business investments, and thus economic empowerment.

Adrian and Hope are forever grateful to AWS for giving them access to clean and safe water through the rain water harvesting tank and continuous trainings and lessons that helped them improve on the sanitation and hygiene conditions of their home.

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Meet Judith

Judith Wafyoyo’s face lights up when she talks about her home.

Looking back, the state of water, sanitation and hygiene in Judith’s village was dire. She and several other families in her community would walk for hours each day to collect water. The sanitation situation was just as bad. Most toilets did not have roofs, doors or even covers, barely any handwashing facilities and even worse, some people were practising open defecation. Her latrine did not have covering lids. Judith says flies were flying everywhere in her house. They were drinking dirty untreated water causing illnesses in the different families – Judith often had to take her children suffering from water-borne related diseases such as diarrhoea and stomach aches for treatment in nearby clinics.

Now, Judith is excited when talking about water because she has a water harvesting tank in her compound – giving her a lot of relief. She says, during the rainy season, she shares the water with her immediate neighbours, who replicate the sanitation practices AWS has trained her on. But she is most proud of her new home – having an improved pit latrine fitted with a satopan to keep out flies and odours, a bath shelter and treating their drinking water using SODIS. Together, Judith and her community members have banded in a Village Savings and Loans Association to help them save and borrow money for their small income-generating activities or to meet their other expenses like school fees with much ease.

Meet Boniconcilla

Boniconcilla's story

Boniconcilla Nyiramugisha, a resident of Gisasa Village, Kagezi Parish, Kanaba Sub – county, is a proud mother and wife to Dusabe David. Blessed with ten children, six of whom are married, Boniconcilla lives with her remaining four children. Her journey to improved sanitation and hygiene began with a simple but powerful intervention by Africa Water Solutions.

At the baseline assessment, Boniconcilla’s household sanitation situation was dire. She had a pit latrine, but its condition was alarming; the roof was leaking, there was no shutter or squat hole cover, no handwashing facility and the structure was poorly maintained and disorganized. Additionally, the household lacked a bath shelter and a plate rack, yet they had grown comfortable living in these conditions. She candidly shared with AWS staff that she saw no reason to improve the latrine since, in her view, its sole purpose was to contain fecal matter.

Boniconcilla’s old dilapidated latrine

Boniconcilla’s new latrine

However, during the triggering session facilitated by AWS, Boniconcilla attended and openly acknowledged that sanitation at her home was detrimental. In a courageous moment before the community, she pledged to transform her household’s sanitation standards and requested AWS staff to monitor her progress after three weeks.

True to her word, within just three weeks, AWS staff returned to find a remarkable transformation. Boniconcilla’s latrine was shining, clean, well-maintained, and hygienic. She joyfully reflected on the change, saying, “Had it not been for AWS, the darkness of poor sanitation would still be covering my home.” Her commitment to maintaining these improvements was evident, and she pledged never to relapse.

Considering her situation, AWS supported her with a 6,000-litre water tank, on which the family contributed in-kind during the construction. The family members no longer have to walk more than 4 kilometres every day in search of water.’

What a significant improvement in her daily life!

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The Mitalas

Meet the Mitala's

In WASH intervention communities, Africa Water Solutions often meets families that melt the team’s heart with joy after experiencing massive transformation. Occasionally, when we think of a house, we picture walls, a roof, windows, and doors; but when you fill those walls with families trying to build a better life for themselves and their children, that house becomes a home. We believe that a home is a foundation, a primary building block for healthy families. We are intentionally training these families to improve their sanitation by encouraging them to build their WASH facilities that translate to the elimination of WASH-related illnesses. Among these is Lumu Mitala’s household.

Meet Mitala, a 34-year-old living with his family in Kimbugu Village, Ssi Bukunja Sub-county, Buikwe District. He and his wife, Nakkonde Faith, 32 years old, have five children – aged between 12 years and 14 months old. Before receiving WASH training, the Mitalas suffered illnesses from drinking contaminated water. These illnesses resulted in hospital visits, which created unplanned medical expenses, taking a significant toll on the family whose source of income is as good as non-existent.

Photos of the Mitala's home before at baseline

On our initial visits, the family house was dilapidated and rugged; Mitala himself was elusive – he spent much of his time away from home. They had no kitchen, no handwashing facilities and were practising open defecation in the neighbouring bushes.

The Mitala family has experienced a holistic transformation from AWS training in WASH best practices, drastically reducing the disease burden on their family. Our staff became more intentional in his household after several failed attempts to train him and his family members how to improve the WASH condition of their home.

Photo: The Mitala’s compound at baseline

Photo: The Mitala’s house walls falling apart

Photo: The Mitala’s kitchen at baseline

The Mitala’s transformed home

After triggering and training, we succeeded in getting Mitala to spend more time improving his home; he reinforced the leaking roof with better iron sheets and smeared his house walls to make them more firm and beautiful. Mr Mitala now has a proper latrine fitted with a Satopan, handwashing facilities installed at the latrine area and entrance to his home, a good kitchen, and a dish rack. Together with his family, they practise SODIS to improve the quality of their drinking water, hence reducing the diarrhoeal disease burden on the family.

Photo: Mr Mitala is repairing the roof of his kitchen

Photo: Mitala’s wife using a tippy tap

Ann’s Story of Relief

Uganda is blessed with beautiful nature scenes and topography; however, this in some parts of the country, becomes a hinderance to accessing basic water supply and sanitation services. Africa Water Solutions is working towards providing people with approaches to access safe and clean water and suitable sanitary and hygiene conditions.

Many districts of South-Western Uganda e.g. Kabale, Rubanda, Kisoro & Kanungu are extremely hilly and steep. Households in these areas settle along the slopes of the hills with only a few water sources that are located in the valleys. While there’s much water during heavy rainfalls, there is also prolonged dry spells yet the people predominantly depend on agriculture.

Anna Akankwas a resident of Mpungu village, in Rubanda district had to walk for 6 hours to fetch only one twenty-litre jerrycan of water before Africa Water Solutions constructed a rainwater harvesting tank for her home. She narrates that the tank has given her and the family relief from those long and tedious journies across hills to fetch water.

“Before I got the tank, I used to wake up at 6:00am to go and fetch water. I would find long lines because the well is only one; on top of that, the path there is rocky and steep and after all those struggles I would only leave with just 20-litres of water which is not even enough for my house household. My children were always late for school hence poor class performance,” explains Anna.

Primarily, the water source for the entire community is one well, the long distance and queues are an everyday struggle for people as they fetch water. The main occupation is farming-and spending hours daily to fetch water is troublesome and leaves them unproductive in the gardens.

Anna’s life and that of everyone in her household has sincechanged after receivingarainwater harvesting tank in her home. As a mother, she has many responsibilities to take care of like cooking, washing, cleaning in addition to farming. Today, with no struggle of getting water, Anna has more time to fend and look after her family.

“Since we got the tank, I prepare my children for school on time, cook and go to the garden on time. Because I was gardening late or not at all after spending long hours while fetching water I was unproductive. But now, I don’t have to wake up so early to go the well, water is at my door-step” Anna

testifies.

We are working to improve the quality of life of more people by bring clean and safe water closer!

www.africawatersolutions.org

Category: Success Stories

Meet Judith

Boniconcilla's story

Meet the Mitala's

Photos of the Mitala's home before at baseline