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Uganda

Providing clean water in northern Uganda

Years of civil war, particularly concentrated in northern Uganda, 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 in Northern Uganda live in these camps, with little or no access to services, such as clean water. This, couple with poor hygiene and sanitation, means that people are vulnerable to disease.

Looting and neglect have destroyed much of the local infrastructure including safe-water sources such as boreholes, shallow wells and protected springs. To make matters worse, many trained hand-pump mechanics have been abducted, displaced by the fighting or have lost their tools.

Aims

- To increase access to clean water and improve sanitation for the displaced persons living in the camps.

- To implement improved sanitation and hygiene practices in the camps.

- To encourage communities to re-establish responsibility for their own water resources and system maintenance.

- To lobby for new water, sanitation and hygiene guidelines.

- To train an increasing number of hand-pump mechanics and provide them with the necessary tools.

Key Achievements

- The introduction of a community maintenance programme has enabled villages to retake responsibility for sourcing their own equipment and given them the skills to maintain the equipment for themselves.

- Training community hand-pump mechanics has meant that communities can sustain their own water supplies without external assistance.

- Building new boreholes and wells has improved community access to water supplies.

- Decrease in household and waterborne diseases.

- Hygiene education provided at resource centres.