Uganda’s 450km expedition for water conquers 300km

ENVIRONMENT | WALKERS | AYENI 

SOROTI - Uganda’s team of walkers on March 14, 2022 conquered a distance of 300km and now they are left with only 150km to complete the Kampala-Lira expedition. 

“We are in Soroti City,” said Geoffrey Walker Ayeni who is leading a team of 25 walkers from Kampala. “We have been conducting an awareness and sanitation campaign in Soroti.” 

Earlier the team had made stopovers at Kapir rock, which is fast becoming a tourist destination and later at the premises of National Water and Sewerage Corporation, Awoja. 

This is where water is cleaned out before it is pumped to Soroti located about 15km away from Awoja swamp, which is one of the landmarks in eastern Uganda. 

NWSC’s team took them around a new irrigation scheme that is benefiting up to 35,000 people, according to Ayeni. 

He said that they were accompanied by teams of NWSC, National Forestry Authority (NFA) and Lake Kyoga Water Management Zone, which is based in Mbale. Also, local leaders accompanied the expedition to Soroti. 

“We walked in a big team of about 60 people into Soroti,” Ayeni said, adding that they were moving into the home bend of the expedition. 

Aisha Sekindi, Minister of state for water in the Ministry of Water and Environment flagged off Ayeni’s latest two’s weeks' expedition on March 3, 2022. 

The expedition is being spearheaded by the Walkers Association of Uganda with many partners including the Ministry of Water and Environment, Care International, VI Agroforestry and WWF. 

The Water Minister also launched the Uganda Water and Environment Week which will take place from March 20 to March 25.

The weeklong meeting will take place at Luzira and the water management zones under the theme, “Water and Environment for Peace and Socio-economic Transformation of Uganda.”