Providing clean water in Northern Uganda
In Northern Uganda, years of civil war have left many people living in displaced persons camps unable to return to their homes. Three quarters of people in Gulu, Pader, and Kitgum districts live in these camps, with little or no access to services such as clean water. Lack of access, coupled with poor hygiene and sanitation, means that people are very vulnerable to disease.
Looting and neglect have destroyed much of the local infrastructure, including safe-water sources like boreholes, shallow wells, and protected springs. To make matters worse, many trained hand-pump mechanics have been abducted, displaced by the fighting, or robbed of their tools.
AMREF has developed a Community-based Approaches to Sanitation and Hygiene Education (CASHE). CASHE involves a partnership of health workers, pupils, parents, and local leaders to improve sanitation in under-served villages. AMREF works to establish sustainable, safe-water resources owned and managed by the community as well as improve safe-water coverage and basic sanitation to internally displaced people.
Main objectives of the project
- Increase access to clean water and improve sanitation for the displaced persons living in the camps
- Implement improved sanitation and hygiene practices in the camps
- Encourage communities to re-establish responsibility for their own water resources and system maintenance
- Lobby for new water, sanitation, and hygiene guidelines
- Train hand-pump mechanics and provide them with the necessary tools
Key achievements
- The introduction of a community maintenance program has both enabled villages to take responsibility for sourcing their own equipment and given them the skills to maintain the equipment for themselves.
- Training community hand-pump mechanics means that communities can now sustain their own water supplies without external assistance.
- Building new boreholes and wells has improved community access to water supplies.
- Overall household and water-borne diseases have decreased.
- Hygiene education is provided at resource centers.
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