Donor: The Deerfield Foundation

Kyabatega Village is located on the same road as the village of Kisindizi where Busoga Trust America constructed a well in 2008. In fact they are in such close proximity that the children of Kyabatega attend Kisindizi Primary School. Given that the village takes all of it’s drinking water from an open water source about 1km from the village center, this means that until BTA constructed the well in Kisindizi, the children had no clean water supply whatsoever, as a government-installed borehole at the school had been stolen.

It is a modestly sized village of around 78 households with an overall population of roughly 250. As mentioned, the school is relatively close at hand, only 2km away, however the problem is the nearest health center is 8km away. Proximity of schools and health centers along with water sources is of major importance to BTA. The level of access to these fundamental utilities which are, or may need to be, accessed on any given day, is a good indicator of just how remote or poorly served a community is. It also underscores just how far they may have to travel to seek medical assistance or a basic education. As we have seen in some villages, if a child is walking 4km to collect water in the morning, another 8km to school and back, and then another 4km to collect water in the evening, they are spending roughly 22% of their lives walking for basic necessities. A key point about the work BTA does is that it is not just clean water which we aim to provide, it is also about the ease of access and the proximity these sources are to important pillars of a community such as schools and health centers.

The village itself, like most rural communities, is a farming community, though they also manufacture bricks for sale too. Both occupations involve hard physical labor and illnesses prevent such work, as Chairman of the Water User Committee, John Kahawe pointed out;

‘First the stomach starts paining, then we get vomiting and then the head pains also’

These are classic signs of diarrhoeal disease, the headache being a result of dehydration caused by the diarrhoea and the vomiting. Ask any villager what diseases they suffer from and they will tell you “malaria”. Ask them what symptoms and they say “headache, vomiting, etc” however they have not been properly tested. It is most likely that they are suffering from a water borne disease.

So when asked why having clean water provided was important to him, Mzee Kahawe replied;

‘For the clean water we will no longer be suffering from these diseases of bad water and can save some small money which we would of spent on medicines’

This well was built with a depth of 26ft with a water table of 8 ft. It was capped on March 30th and the pump installation took place on April 10th.

View the Kyabatega Photo Gallery