By Samuel Kamugisha
As a little girl growing up in present-day Madi-Okollo District, Jackline Akongo remembers how her mother used to wake her up at about 4am and send her to fetch water. Her eyes still heavy with sleep, Akongo, her siblings and neighbours’ children would walk for about an hour from Lower Parabok in Pawor Sub- County to River Nile to fetch water. “One early morning, I fell off the bridge. I only survived because I knew how to swim; otherwise I would have drowned,” she recalls, her mind somewhat distant.
Now aged 35, Akongo returned home from South Sudan to start a food business at Lower Parabok Trading Centre in 2017. And almost three decades since she survived drowning in the Nile, the same water problem that almost cost her life still persisted. “Water was really expensive,” she says.
COST OF DOING BUSINESS DOWN
A 20-litre jerrycan of water from the Nile cost Shs700. Akongo needed between 15 and 20 jerry cans per day for her restaurant to enable her to prepare food for her customers. In total, she would part with between Shs10,500 and Shs14,000 to pay commercial motorcyclists (boda bodas) who delivered the water daily.
On days when jackie was cash strapped, she would send her children to the river, and stay behind, organising the restaurant and praying that none of them veers off the bridge or wades away to the deeper part of the water body in pursuit of clearer water.
Akongo sometimes received complaints from her customers that the water she used exposed them to worm infections. Even when she boiled it, some refused to drink it, insisting it was worm-infested. “They would buy mineral water or go for borehole water,” she narrates, as she delivers my order of beef and rice.
But with the UGX:860m Pawor Water Supply System completed in August 2020, Akongo can now breathe a sigh of relief. With funding from the German Government (KFW) channelled through the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), the Pawor Water Supply System was constructed by Oxfam as an alternative source of safer water for the communities in Pawor.
According to Patrick Odong,Oxfam’s Public Health Engineering Team Leader in Arua, locals are now assured of a reliable water supply from the 35-cubic-metre capacity system whose borehole is 120m deep. Its 108 cubic-metre tank storage capacity also makes it a dependable water source.
At the pump station, Halima Inzikuru, the attendant, tells me that the system runs on either solar energy or a generator.
COST OF DOING BUSINESS DOWN
A 20-litre jerrycan of water from the Nile cost Shs700. Akongo needed between 15 and 20 jerry cans per day for her restaurant to enable her to prepare food for her customers. In total, she would part with between Shs10,500 and Shs14,000 to pay commercial motorcyclists (boda bodas) who delivered the water daily.
On days when jackie was cash strapped, she would send her children to the river, and stay behind, organising the restaurant and praying that none of them veers off the bridge or wades away to the deeper part of the water body in pursuit of clearer water.
Akongo sometimes received complaints from her customers that the water she used exposed them to worm infections. Even when she boiled it, some refused to drink it, insisting it was worm-infested. “They would buy mineral water or go for borehole water,” she narrates, as she delivers my order of beef and rice.
But with the UGX:860m Pawor Water Supply System completed in August 2020, Akongo can now breathe a sigh of relief. With funding from the German Government (KFW) channelled through the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), the Pawor Water Supply System was constructed by Oxfam as an alternative source of safer water for the communities in Pawor.
According to Patrick Odong,Oxfam’s Public Health Engineering Team Leader in Arua, locals are now assured of a reliable water supply from the 35-cubic-metre capacity system whose borehole is 120m deep. Its 108 cubic-metre tank storage capacity also makes it a dependable water source.
“At the pump station, Halima Inzikuru, the attendant, tells me that the system runs on either solar energy or a generator.”
SAFE WATER AT AN AFFORDABLE COST
People like Akongo say they have seen a significant change in their lives in the few weeks that tap waterhas run at the six kiosks scattered across Pawor Sub-County.
Although she had thought the water would be free as is the case in refugee settlements, Akongo says she doesn’t mind paying for the safe water. “Even if we are paying for the Oxfam water, the money isn’t much,” she says.
A 20-litre jerrycan of water goes for Shs50 at each of the water kiosks. Akongo now spends between Shs750 and Shs1,000 for water daily. “They explained to us that they use the money for generator fuel and for maintenance,” Akongo recollects.
According to Odong, part of the money also meets wages for pump attendants. These are responsible for opening and closing taps,
receiving money from water buyers as well as ensuring safety and cleanliness at the kiosks. Of the total amount earned in the month at the respective kiosk, each attendant gets 15 per cent.
For the project’s first six months, Oxfam will pay a token worth Shs250,000 for each of the attendants on a monthly basis, reveals Xavier Odongokara, Pawor Sub-County’s Acting Community Development Officer (CDO).
Oxfam and the OPM will then hand over the kiosks to the local authorities, which will start paying attendants. In preparation for that handover, Odongokara says that the Sub- County Water and Sanitation Board will also hire a plumber, a pump station attendant and a meter reader assistant.
Odongokara adds that by the time of handover to the local authorities and partner community organisations, the project will
have a manager to oversee it, a bank account for the funds from the water sales and means of transport such as motorcycles for the staff.
These, he hopes, will make it easier to manage the water system and help the community continue to reap the benefits of access to clean and safe water.
Oxfam has assured locals it will connect water to the homes of those who can afford to pay a largely affordable connection fee. But that will not happen until pretests have been done. These will take at least three months, reveals Odongokara. Presently, locals can access clean and safe water at the six kiosks.
Odongokara and other leaders would want more kiosks installed. They are confident the connections would go a long way in promoting the hygiene, sanitation and health of people in the communities.
RELIEF FOR CHILDREN AND WOMEN
Before the taps at the kiosks began flowing with water, the over 13,700 people in Pawor Sub-County either fetched water from the Nile River or scrambled for the same at the three functional boreholes, notes Odongokara.
The three were situated at Pawor Health Centre III, Akavu Primary School and at Mubanda Village. Previously, the sub-county had 17 boreholes but most “got spoilt, some beyond repair,” continues the CDO.
That means that hundreds had to converge at the three functional boreholes for water. For example, three villages shared the borehole at Pawor Health Centre, while the one at Akavu was used by two villages and a school. As a result, most homes opted to use borehole water for drinking and continued trekking kilometres to the Nile to fetch more for domestic use. “The queues at these boreholes would be too long,” Odongokara says.
It was the women and children that braved these long borehole queues and walked miles for the water. “Women go to the river to collect water at dawn, when men are still in bed,” the CDO notes.
He adds that the women then proceed to the fields until after sunset, and most men spend the day away in trading centres playing games and drinking. When they return from the fields, the women are expected to provide bathing water and prepare meals for their husbands. Sometimes, tired from the gardens, women are unable to meet these expectations. The resultant is always quarrels – and other forms of domestic violence.
For example, Florence Dra Ecabo from Payila Village remembers her husband insisting that she first fetches water from the river before heading to the field. But the mother of four says the Oxfam water project has not only significantly reduced the distance she used to trek to a water source from two kilometres to a five-minute walk, “there is now peace in our home.”
For others like Zainab Tiperu, being able to access water a few metres from her home at Ondiko Trading Centre means great relief for her and her 10 children. A seller of food stuffs, Tiperu says she now fetches water
thrice a day instead of the six trips she used to make to the river. “The water is clean and near.”
Odongokara is aware of the woes of women regarding access to water. The sub-county leaders have kept emphasizing the role of men in supporting their families to get clean and safe water.
Mindset change efforts have also been bolstered by Village Health Teams (VHTs) that work closely with Oxfam humanitarian workers. Johnson Thoriek is one of them. He and leaders like Odongokara are guiding and inspiring fellow men to set aside money for water daily. They leave money for daily water collection in their homes, as well
as encouraging porper water storage as a measure of improving hygiene at the household.
Akongo’s husband John Bahemuka previously served as a police officer in Pawor. Bahemuka believes there were scores on unreported cases of sexual violence such as rape and defilement at the river.
The country over, reporting of sexual offences remains low due to the stigma victims who come out suffer. He also says some girls and boys would agree to meet at the river in evenings, and the resultant was early pregnancies and marriages.
Odongokara agrees that although the Oxfam water has been flowing for a few weeks now, there has been a significant reduction in gender-based violence related to water issues.
“Tiperu says she now fetches water thrice a day instead of the six trips she used to make to the river. “The water is clean and near.”
RIVER WATER VERSUS TAP WATER
Odongokara, Thoriek and other leaders and Village Health Teams are still grappling with changing men’s attitude. “Some still think that this is a business, and don’t see why they should leave free water from the river to pay for tap water,” says Thoriek. “We tell them the water at the river is not safe; we encourage them to leave it. We even encourage the fishermen to pack boiled water.” Also of concern to sub county leaders, Oxfam health promoters, the water board, user committee and members of Village Health Teams (VHTs) have been the people who live nearer the river bank and “don’t see why they should buy water from the kiosk.”
A few community members also complain about the saltiness of the tap water but health promoters say their efforts in sensitizing the people that although a bit salty, the water is safer than that drawn from the Nile, are paying off.
Akongo, a restaurant owner in Lower Parabok, says such complaints have reduced since boiling the water lessens saltiness. Odongokara, Thoriek and others continuously emphasize the communities that the moderate saltiness is not harmful to health and that the water is safe for human consumption.
On complaints on the hardness of the water – which means that it leaves stains on clothes – the leaders and health promoters have suggested that community members use detergents like Omo and Nomi to overcome this challenge or fetch water for washing from the river and use the one from the taps for drinking, cooking and bathing.
HEALTH IMPROVEMENT
Despite complaints from a few people, those who have consistently used the safe water from the kiosks have reported a change in the health of family members, with water- borne diseases reducing significantly. A father of seven, CDO Odongokara says the river water had exposed his children to water- borne diseases like bilharzia. “I knew tis was happening but we had no alternative source of water, there was noting to do,” he recalls.
He has also registered a cut in his family’s hospital bill. “Since the Oxfam water water supply system was constructed, my budget for treatment [of water-borne diseases] has reduced,” he notes. “A half of my family are now free from infestation, no worm infection, and no scabies.”
Owing to the fact that his family members had to walk a long distance to the river, the family would not have enough water for domestic use. For example, he explains, his wife would use one basin of water to bathe about five children. “If one of them had scabies, the others would be infected.”
But nowadays, Odongokara leaves home money to buy enough water for his family, and his children no longer have to share the same bath water.
Even Akongo has seen cases of scabies among her children reduce.
LOOKING AHEAD
As they await water connections to homes, sub-county leaders and health promoters are encouraging vital hygiene and sanitation practices. They have taught community
members to establish hand washing facilities, drying racks and latrines.
Dra Ecabo, a Village Heath Team member, says she has noticed at least 18 Payila Village members put up such structures in recent months. The leaders and health teams are also working with the water User Committees and the Sub-County water board to ensure that the kiosks and other water sources
are kept clean. They also emphasize the importance of using clean jerrycans to fetch and store water. Those who come with dirty jerrycans are turned away, the health promoters I met at Pawor Sub County told me.
According to Odongokara, leaders in Pawor have undertaken efforts to encourage community members who may not afford paying for connections to collect water from their neighbours who will have managed to secure connections in the coming months. And as the CDO puts it, behavioural change is a gradual process, and with access to clean and safe water, the focus will be on how the community can make use of the water kiosks to promote hygiene and sanitation.
