Time up! We are running out of safe clean water
Mar 23, 2008
ALICE Namoso, an unemployed single mother of seven, of Buyobo village, Mbale says she spends close to sh10,000 a month on water as opposed to sh8,000 on rent for her one-roomed house. A native of Mbale, Namoso is living in a water starved area.
By Frederick Womakuyu
ALICE Namoso, an unemployed single mother of seven, of Buyobo village, Mbale says she spends close to sh10,000 a month on water as opposed to sh8,000 on rent for her one-roomed house. A native of Mbale, Namoso is living in a water starved area.
“I would rather live in a clumsy house with good water supply than in one without,†she says.
Jane Nandudu, 23, is another woman who has been hard hit with water scarcity. She complains about the distance she has to walk up and down the hill in search of water. “It is not easy to carry water uphill,†she says. A typical day for Nandudu starts at 4:00am.
She carries 30 litres of milk across two ridges to the shopping centre, where she boards a vehicle to Mbale town to sell the milk.
From Mbale, she returns home by 11:00am. From then to 5:00pm, Nandudu starts her water trips up and down the hill to the river. Using three 20-litre jerrycans, she goes to fetch water.
She balances one on her head and carries the other two in the left and right hand. “I have to make five trips to get enough water for home and my two cows,†she says.
By 5:30pm Nandudu, even though exhausted from fetching water, starts her milk collection in preparation for the next day’s early morning sales.
The girl-child in Bugisu is not spared the agony of searching for water.
At 2:00pm when they get home from school, many of them are sent to fetch water. It is a daily routine for six-year-old Grace Namono and a friend, who rush down to the river with two five-litre jerrycans each.
They have to fill a 100 litre drum before night fall. Namono and her friend do hardly have time to do their homework.
Rose Nabulo, like other women in Bugisu, spends most of her morning filling jerrycans with water and only manages to open her food stall in the afternoons. A 20-litre jerrycan of water costs sh1,100.
Whereas town women blame local authorities for erratic water supplies, those in the rural areas can only look up to self-help projects, which have their own problems.
To save themselves from the back-breaking and time-consuming water search, most people in the district dig shallow wells in their compounds at a cost of sh100, 000.
Five out of 10 homesteads have such wells. But this project has also had several challenges.
The shallow well project suffered a serious setback two years ago when cholera swept across Bugisu and was traced to contaminated water in the unprotected wells.
Located 15 kilometres from Mbale town, Sironko township and its environment are popular residential areas for Mbale casual workers. The large number of these workers puts a strain on the available water resources.
The water officer for Tear Fund, an NGO operating in Sironko, Andrew Chekwichi, says the township requires 9,000 gallons of water a day. Even the three recently commissioned bore-holes, his town barely meets one-third of the water needs.
The regional director for Rural Water Project, Annet Wandera, says women are the most affected by water scarcity, but lack the capacity to have a say in water resource use and management because of their lack of exposure to science and technology.
“To make informed choices and decisions, beneficiaries of water systems should have basic knowledge of the technologies involved.
In 1980, the residents under the patronage of the then area MP, Wilson Wambazu Musani, started a water project that was to supply over 5,000 people with gravity-fed water from Siyiyi River originating from Mt. Elgon.
Pipes were donated by the Government, and the community contributed money and labour. The project was completed in 1985 and water started flowing into schools, churches and most homesteads.
Barely a year later, water in over three-quarters of the homes had been disconnected by the people nearer to the source. They diverted the water to their gardens for irrigation, crippling the project.
Four years ago, a similar project was started by Rural Water and Sanitation in Kapchorwa. Community leaders are optimistic it will bear fruit this time round and ease the water crisis.
In Bugisu, it is rivers like Manafa that relieve the strain. It is able to provide water to the three districts of Mbale, Sironko and Bududa.
Being that in rural areas,its the women who fetch water, they are the hardest hit by the lack of easy access to water.
Facts About safe and clean water
70% of the world's surface is covered by water, but 97.5% of that is salt water. Of the remaining 2.5% that is freshwater, 68.7% is frozen in ice caps and glaciers. Less than one percent is available for human use.
More than 1.2 billion people, about a fifth of humanity, lack access to safe drinking water, according to UN data. About 2.6 billion, or 40%, have no access to sanitation. About 71% have no connection to a public sewerage system.
Governments set a Millennium Goal in 2000 of halving the proportion of people with no access to safe and clean drinking water by 2015.
The goal is within reach, according to a 2007 UN review, but the world is lagging behind in the goal of halving the proportion with no access to sanitation. Annually 200 million tonnes of human waste is uncollected
Achieving the twin 2015 drinking water and sanitation goals will require spending of $11.5b extra a year.
The amount of water needed for crop production will rise to 60-90% by 2050.
Diarrhoea and malaria are the main water-related diseases, with most deaths among young children.
The UN Climate Panel says global warming, stoked by human use of fossil fuels, will disrupt farming from China to India.
In Africa, up to 250 million people may suffer more water stress by 2020.
ALICE Namoso, an unemployed single mother of seven, of Buyobo village, Mbale says she spends close to sh10,000 a month on water as opposed to sh8,000 on rent for her one-roomed house. A native of Mbale, Namoso is living in a water starved area.
“I would rather live in a clumsy house with good water supply than in one without,†she says.
Jane Nandudu, 23, is another woman who has been hard hit with water scarcity. She complains about the distance she has to walk up and down the hill in search of water. “It is not easy to carry water uphill,†she says. A typical day for Nandudu starts at 4:00am.
She carries 30 litres of milk across two ridges to the shopping centre, where she boards a vehicle to Mbale town to sell the milk.
From Mbale, she returns home by 11:00am. From then to 5:00pm, Nandudu starts her water trips up and down the hill to the river. Using three 20-litre jerrycans, she goes to fetch water.
She balances one on her head and carries the other two in the left and right hand. “I have to make five trips to get enough water for home and my two cows,†she says.
By 5:30pm Nandudu, even though exhausted from fetching water, starts her milk collection in preparation for the next day’s early morning sales.
The girl-child in Bugisu is not spared the agony of searching for water.
At 2:00pm when they get home from school, many of them are sent to fetch water. It is a daily routine for six-year-old Grace Namono and a friend, who rush down to the river with two five-litre jerrycans each.
They have to fill a 100 litre drum before night fall. Namono and her friend do hardly have time to do their homework.
Rose Nabulo, like other women in Bugisu, spends most of her morning filling jerrycans with water and only manages to open her food stall in the afternoons. A 20-litre jerrycan of water costs sh1,100.
Whereas town women blame local authorities for erratic water supplies, those in the rural areas can only look up to self-help projects, which have their own problems.
To save themselves from the back-breaking and time-consuming water search, most people in the district dig shallow wells in their compounds at a cost of sh100, 000.
Five out of 10 homesteads have such wells. But this project has also had several challenges.
The shallow well project suffered a serious setback two years ago when cholera swept across Bugisu and was traced to contaminated water in the unprotected wells.
Located 15 kilometres from Mbale town, Sironko township and its environment are popular residential areas for Mbale casual workers. The large number of these workers puts a strain on the available water resources.
The water officer for Tear Fund, an NGO operating in Sironko, Andrew Chekwichi, says the township requires 9,000 gallons of water a day. Even the three recently commissioned bore-holes, his town barely meets one-third of the water needs.
The regional director for Rural Water Project, Annet Wandera, says women are the most affected by water scarcity, but lack the capacity to have a say in water resource use and management because of their lack of exposure to science and technology.
“To make informed choices and decisions, beneficiaries of water systems should have basic knowledge of the technologies involved.
In 1980, the residents under the patronage of the then area MP, Wilson Wambazu Musani, started a water project that was to supply over 5,000 people with gravity-fed water from Siyiyi River originating from Mt. Elgon.
Pipes were donated by the Government, and the community contributed money and labour. The project was completed in 1985 and water started flowing into schools, churches and most homesteads.
Barely a year later, water in over three-quarters of the homes had been disconnected by the people nearer to the source. They diverted the water to their gardens for irrigation, crippling the project.
Four years ago, a similar project was started by Rural Water and Sanitation in Kapchorwa. Community leaders are optimistic it will bear fruit this time round and ease the water crisis.
In Bugisu, it is rivers like Manafa that relieve the strain. It is able to provide water to the three districts of Mbale, Sironko and Bududa.
Being that in rural areas,its the women who fetch water, they are the hardest hit by the lack of easy access to water.
Facts About safe and clean water
70% of the world's surface is covered by water, but 97.5% of that is salt water. Of the remaining 2.5% that is freshwater, 68.7% is frozen in ice caps and glaciers. Less than one percent is available for human use.
More than 1.2 billion people, about a fifth of humanity, lack access to safe drinking water, according to UN data. About 2.6 billion, or 40%, have no access to sanitation. About 71% have no connection to a public sewerage system.
Governments set a Millennium Goal in 2000 of halving the proportion of people with no access to safe and clean drinking water by 2015.
The goal is within reach, according to a 2007 UN review, but the world is lagging behind in the goal of halving the proportion with no access to sanitation. Annually 200 million tonnes of human waste is uncollected
Achieving the twin 2015 drinking water and sanitation goals will require spending of $11.5b extra a year.
The amount of water needed for crop production will rise to 60-90% by 2050.
Diarrhoea and malaria are the main water-related diseases, with most deaths among young children.
The UN Climate Panel says global warming, stoked by human use of fossil fuels, will disrupt farming from China to India.
In Africa, up to 250 million people may suffer more water stress by 2020.