Call to Care Uganda: Clean Water

Lack of access to safe drinking water contributes to the staggering burden of diarrheol diseases worldwide, particularly affecting the young, the immuno-compromised and the poor. Nearly one in five child deaths – about 1.5 million each year – is due to diarrhea. Diarrhea kills more young children than AIDS, malaria and measles combined. Drinking contaminated water also leads to reduced personal productive time, with widespread economic effects.

Approximately 43% of the global population, especially the lower-income populace in the remote and rural parts of the developing world, is deprived of household safe piped water. Thus, there is a pressing need for effective and affordable options for obtaining safe drinking water at home. Point-of-use (POU) treatment is an alternative approach, which can accelerate the health gains associated with the provision of safe drinking water to the at-risk populations. It empowers people to control the quality of their drinking water. Treating water at the household level or other point of use also reduces the risk of waterborne disease arising from re-contamination during collection, transport, and use in the home, a well-known cause of water-quality degradation. In many rural and urban areas of the developing world, household water-quality interventions can reduce diarrhea morbidity by more than 40%. Treating water in the home offers the opportunity for significant health gains at potentially dramatic cost savings over conventional improvements in water supplies, such as piped water connections to households.

Water filters have been shown to be the most effective interventions amongst all point-of-use water treatment methods for reducing diseases. Currently, in many places there not enough to treat water at the point-of-source; it must also be made safe at the point-of-consumption.

East Haven Rotary participated in Rotary International’s Global Grant to build freshwater wells in Uganda. Six wells will be created. These are photos of the wells being drilled at four of the six sites. The fifth one is soon to be started, and the drilling of the well at the Arabaka Village is completed and the well is ready for pump testing. The villagers gathered at some of the drilling sites in great anticipation of the water that will come!

The sixth site in Rotary’s Grant Application is Kapir Village. When the drilling company went there to do the site survey they found that there was already a new well there! During the time that the application was being reviewed another organization offered to drill a well there. Since they were in desperate need of water they gratefully accepted. Fortunately, when the Soroti Central Rotary did the Needs Assessment they included more than six villages in their evaluation, as they should, and the next village in line was Okulai Village/Kamuda Victorious Academy primary School, with 870 people.