Water is Life

We all take fresh water for granted, but what would you do if the tap didn’t work?

With the help of the Kigezi Diocese Water and Sanitation Department we have just installed another 8 four thousand litre water tanks in the Buranga District of the Kabale region. This brings our total to 80 tanks installed over the last 3 years.

New tank

 

These household tanks change the lives of the recipients who no longer have to walk miles to fetch their water. The tanks are installed at the homes of the elderly, disabled and HIV families.

Tank recipient

Quote: ‘This is a God given tank; there are many other weak, old people like us who have been given tanks like us. We are very happy and grateful to those who provided the funds. We shall take care of the tank so that the water remains close by, as we know everything requires maintenance.

Tank recipients

 

This is an extract from a letter of thanks:

 

Life has greatly changed since we got the water tanks as follows:

• We, the elderly, have water near our houses; we have enough to drink after boiling it.
• We are able to do work in time because the water is near by.
• Our children no longer suffer the burden of fetching water
• The level of sanitation and hygiene has greatly improved because we have enough water to clean our cloth, bath, and clean household utensils.

Even people who have not befitted from the tanks are also happy that their neighbors have received the tanks benefited because they sometimes share the water.

 

Water provision can be a challenge to those living with HIV and their care-givers. Culturally it’s a child’s job to fetch water for the family, with children in rural areas travelling long distances with no guarantee that the water source is clean and safe. Being given a rainwater-harvesting tank means a clean source of water, which highly reduces their risk of secondary infection.

The area is very hilly and is home to approx. 26,200 residents. Typical houses are constructed of dirt floors, clay walls and corrugated tin roofs.

Rev Reuben checking the tap

A household water tanks costs around £400 – this includes training in maintenance and sanitation. Our programme is ongoing and donations are gratefully accepted
at http://www.edirisa.org.uk/Donate.html

Clinic on Bwama Island, Uganda

The building for the outpatients clinic and accommodation for international doctors on Bwama Island is almost finished and the Slovenian volunteer doctors have started work!

In July and August six volunteers from BRISTOL UNIVERSITY bought paints and brushes and set about the mammoth task of painting inside and out. Every day they canoed over from the Bufuka peninsular to Bwama Island and got stuck in! The builders were still working so they started painting the doctors accommodation.

BVDA Volunteers with Graham Carter

Massive thanks for all that hard work. The building is now awaiting the installation of the water harvesting tank, the required funds have been raised and work should start soon. Now we are busy raising funds for the solar installation.

Here are some recent photos of the clinic.

Just before the gutters went on

With gutters

The waiting area needs some benches!

Waiting area

At the end of September we welcomed a new group of medical volunteers from Slovenia, who will be with us for one month and will help us to open the new clinic. The Section for Tropical Medicine at The University of Ljubljana has been sending volunteers to work at Bufuka for several years now and the clinic has been built to give them better working conditions and to improve patient care around Lake Bunyonyi. The Tropical Medicine School has partnered with us on this project and are responsible for furnishing and equipping the clinic.

The volunteers have moved some equipment and old solar panels from Bufuka over to the island and have had a taste of the work that went into the building; all the materials for the clinic – bricks, cement, hardcocre etc –  was taken by boat  across the lake and then carried up to the site. They had to do the same, all the medical equipment,  boxes of medicines, medical supplies, books, benches, tables, shelves and their luggage they carried over! By the end of the day everyone had had a good workout and was thoroughly tired of moving boxes. Well done for all that effort!

After that it was time for the government staff to move into the new clinic. They had been working from an old building on the island so moved all their equipment and medicines to the new building, ready to begin work with their Slovenian colleagues. Of course in true Ugandan style this move also called for a small celebratory party, with traditional food cooked by the local village women. The next day was spent unpacking and lots of cleaning!
Now the clinic is open the volunteers are spending their time between treating patients and managing carpenters, locksmiths and electricians. Some of the girls have even become tailors, sewing home made curtains (the eyes of all-too-curious school children are keen to see what the Muzungu are doing at all hours of the day!).

For now staff and volunteers at the Health Centre have opened two clinic rooms for wounds and bandages, a microscopy delivery room, and of course room for the reception of patients. The local staff are enjoying working with the volunteers and have excitedly discussed how “very experienced” they are, as well as being impressed that some are already learning the local language.

For us at Edirisa it’s very rewarding to see what was just an empty building a few weeks ago becoming a fully-fledged Health Centre.

Savings Lives at Lake Bunyonyi, Uganda

For the children who live on the shores of Lake Bunyonyi,  the second deepest lake in Africa, collecting water and travelling in canoes on the lake is part of their daily life.  The  lake has a steep drop off from the land and fetching water  poses a high risk of children falling in and drowning.  Canoes often capsize in bad weather or when they are overloaded, and on average  between one and two people a month drown here. It is difficult to find someone who has not lost a close friend or relative to the water.

 

Going home from school

 

Edirisa’s swimming programme is part of a larger effort to mobilise swimming at schools around the lake. The Lake Bunyonyi Development Company train teachers in swimming with the hope that they will make time in the holidays to run swim camps with their students. At our centre in Bufuka the lessons are staffed by our volunteers and run during term time PE classes as well as during the school holidays. We are lucky to have the facility to teach students in a locally made swimming platform that sits in the lake rather than take novice swimmers into dangerous, deep open water.

 

The swimming platform

 

Kids by the pool

As the school term ends our volunteers have started planning a summer swim school for the month-long holiday. It’s a part of the volunteer programme that is very much appreciated by the students and wider community as it continues to help save lives. Students at Bufuka have come a long way in the last year; Julia Fellinger and Ziva Skrlovnik recently took the first group of advanced swimmers on a 300m open water swim with great success.

We would like to say a big THANK YOU to all of our Teach Inn Bufuka volunteers who have been at the centre of this project. It is their efforts that have made such a big difference and we hope that our continued support will give these children not only confidence in the water but also the ability to swim to safety if needed.

 

This is fun!

Swimming

 

Sarah teaching swimming

We are also grateful to our partners – Edirisa Slovenia – who have just donated funds for much-needed renovations of the swimming platform. It is almost ready to be painted by volunteers in time for the summer lessons (watch this space!). Vrtec Volce, a Slovenian nursery, has also donated a number of children’s swimming costumes, towels and arm-bands which are much appreciated.

A GREAT TEAM EFFORT