She drinks a glass of water. She fills a tub with clothes to scrub and rinses them out with water. She puts a pot of water on the stove to boil vegetables for dinner. Her six children tramp home covered in dust from school or playing with their friends, and she has set aside plastic containers of water for them to bathe with before bed. She works hard, and her work runs on water.
Ester Ayoo is a farmer and a member of one of Invisible Children Uganda’s (ICU) Village Savings and Loan Associations called Mak Mukemi, which loosely translated means ‘taking responsibility.’ Last week she came to celebrate the commissioning of a new borehole that will provide safe drinking water for her and her community. Previously, she said she was using water from an unprotected spring, and people in her village would sometimes suffer from worms and typhoid.
The Head of Office for ICU, Elijah Muchiri, encouraged the savings groups to set aside money for maintenance of the borehole.
“To me, the water is life,” Elijah said. “This water point was drilled to support communities to get water close to home.”
Ester is relieved to no longer have to worry about where her water will come from.
“The water is near. Even if you are tired you are able to get the water. Even if you are sick you can get water.”
This year, ICU’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene team completed 12 boreholes with funding from TechnoServe, bringing their total number of boreholes drilled to 32.
The first cup of water served from the new borehole.
No ceremony would be complete without traditional dancing.
Invisible Children Uganda has now drilled 32 boreholes in rural communities of northern Uganda. Water, Sanitation & Hygiene is one of our Recovery Programs in Uganda, and is funded through monthly donations by members of Fourth Estate. Find out how you can sign up for a Fourth Estate membership HERE.
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