In 2005, UCOBAC carried out a Baseline Survey for Strengthening Community Based Resource Mobilisation To Empower Vulnerable Rural Women and their Children in Mityana district and information obtained about the water situation in the rural parts of the d
Narrative
Ten grandmother-headed households will be selected to benefit from this round of the water project funding. We have selected the simple rain water harvesting technologies e.g. erection of an iron sheet on four poles while it is slanting to enable rain water run over and fill into a plastic tank erected at the end of the iron sheets where a gutter is put to collect the water and passing through a pipe fill into the tank. We erect this technology in a clear place where no leaves or any other dirt can fall onto the iron sheets keeping the water clean and safe for human consumption. The impact seen is the decrease in water-borne diseases in the communities. Women and children do not have to spend hours walking long distances to fetch water. children do not have to miss school or go to school late due to long distances while collecting water. Girls children are often defiled, abducted or even murdered while searching for water!!
Sustainability
Creating and measuring long-term impact
The long term sustainable impact would be to sell some of the water to enable the family meet the maintenance costs of the technology. Instead of selling at the usual Ug Shs 100=, we would sell at Ug. Shs 50=. Since UCOBAC opted for simple techniques for grandmothers being the poorest of the poor, the water harvested was purely meant for consumption by the families concerned. However, when we do receive more funding, we intend to build and install big water tanks at schools and trading centres and towns whereby selling of the water will be emphasised to the benefiting communities to make the project more sustainable.
Other Issues
Unusual and unexpected issues faced during project execution
The project was very much welcome and many households wished to join had it not been for limited funding. Many people were perplexed at the way they have been suffering looking for water without thinking that they could harvest rain water and be able to use clean safe water.
Learnings
Knowledge of project and process for sharing
When man more families are involved in the training and learning of how to harvest rain water, the issue of travelling long distances in search for water will be eliminated and people have already seen the benefit of using clean safe water harvested using the materials that were provided by The African Water and Water Conference organisers!!
Impact
People Getting Safe Drinking Water: 200
Ten families each with seven children, one woman or man and one youth. This data was collected during the verification exercise before selection of the ten households to benefit from the project.
People Getting Sanitation: 600
We encourage all neighbouring families to join the target households to attend our sessions since it is important that all families in the communities get basic information on sanitation. As many as sixty (60) families, 360 children, 60 youth, sixty women and about forty men are getting sanitation.
People Getting Other Benefits: 300
About 25 families getting other benefits; 125 children, 25 women and 25 youth.