ACCESS TO SAFE & CLEAN WATER FOR RURAL PEOPLE
BASIC PROJECT INFORMATION
Bukyalimba, Bugonda, Busota e.t.c Village are the many villages which make up Namisambya 1&2 Parish. These Villages alone has a population of, 7.876 people as per 2012. This is a very remote and poor Villages, most of the people in this Community are either young or very old, showing a typical example of how HIV/AIDS has killed the youths or working age, leaving behind many little children and old grand mothers and fathers. This poor and remote village appears to be like cut off from the rest of the world.
In this entire village, mainly depends on basic farm field and garden farming for their livelihood however they are always at the mercy of the weather for them to plant their crops, they have to always wait for the rainy seasons in order to plant and till their gardens. This means that when it doesn’t rain on time, famine always strikes killings several people.
At a glance you will see that, like any other village in Uganda, the Ugandan government has ignored them in TOTAL!!!! The only time they see a politician or their leader is the time when they leaders and politicians are looking for votes or harassing the local people to pay taxes. There are no hospitals or health centres, no proper schools, no roads, lack of access to safe clean water name it.
As an Aussie, a missionary who has been working in this community for so long, i have realised there is an urgent need for ACCESS to SAFE & CLEAN WATER. It makes me cry when i see the locals dying due to water related diseases. This is very much preventable if only they had a borehole, water tanks or big contains where they can access safe and clean water. There is an ever increasing school drop out for girls because Water fetching, this is attributed to the fact that water fetching is a domestic duty of girls and women. On average women and girls are walking for over 4miles to JUST tap 20litres of safe clean water from the only protected well in the community.
There is increased domestic violence in this community, this kind of gender based violence stems from the fact that as women and girls walk for miles to fetch water, they have to line up for hours before they can tap the water, then they have to walk back home, by the time they reach home, its always very late and dark, so their husbands end up beating them, suspecting that they have sexual affairs elsewhere with other men. These men are so heartless; they don’t even appreciate the poor women. It’s too bad a situation here. I wish the government can take a study into this situation.
There are increased rape cases, and always women and girls are raped in the evening hours. When I first visited this village in 2009, 31cases of rape were reported within the community and of course the police in Kamuli never followed up the cases. And 2010 more women were raped and in 2012 the number of rape cases has more than doubled. The rapists always take advantage of those poor defenceless women as they walk in the night from the only source of clean water.
So water women and girls do is to resort to fetching water from open, unprotected water sources like in the swamps. Its so bothering to learn that, humans are now sharing these health hazard water swamps with animals. This has translated into several waterborne diseases and increased death of the children and adults. WHAT A LIFE!!
Join hands with me to bring safe clean water to this community, we all deserve a proper life; we all need a better living, WATER IS LIFE.
PROJECT OBJECTIVES & GOALS
As earlier stated, there is increasing rape cases, school dropout, domestic violence and death in this community all originating from lack of access to safe clean water. This crisis in this community can be put under control. With just one borehole, the change will be instant and the community will be more happier and start living like a normal like.
