Kabarole People are enjoying safe and clean water due to improved advocacy by rural Advocacy Forums

Kabarole People are enjoying safe and clean water due to improved advocacy by rural Advocacy Forums using appropriate ICT tools especially radio discussions.

People of Kiboha parish Nyabatahi Village Mugusu Sub county have been surviving on dirty and unsafe water for  over 8 months after the only borehole  in the community broke down and no one seem to have interest to work on it, the leaders were informed but no one took positive action. The problem affected the women and children who could walk for over two hours to fetch water from the wells the borehole was serving over 130 households in that village.

“As a forum we received the complaint on 5^th May 2015 and we arranged a community meeting to see how we can mobilize the resources to work on the borehole.  We went on site and proved that the borehole was not working. The forum leaders called for a community meeting with an aim of setting ideas on how to raise the required for funds and where to get the resources from, community members suggested that Red Cross should be approached to see if they can provide the community with the spare part, as a forum we got a starting point after the meeting”. Said Mukwano Ssenyonjjo, the chairman of people’s rights and forum for development in Mugusu Sub County, Kabarole District.

Mukwano adds individuals were selected during the meeting and given a duty to go to the offices of Uganda Red Cross to lobby for spares which were needed to fix in the borehole good enough the Red Cross agreed to provide the spare parts but the community was told to raise funds for transport to transport the spares from Fort-portal town to the site and to pay for the labour.

“On 29^th June 2015 as a forum we took a lead to start looking for the funds for transporting the spares and to pay the workers who were to fix the borehole, we approached individuals and a good Samaritan and a concerned local citizen Mr. Businge John supported the activity with one hundred and fifty thousand shillings (150, 000/-) the bore hole was fixed on 3^rd/ July 2015 and now people are enjoying clean as safe work due to the efforts of the   advocacy forum”. Said Tibenda Stephen the secretary of people’s rights and forum for development in Mugusu Sub County, Kabarole District.

ToroDev staff with Mugusu Advocacy forum members verifying the water sources 

Children & community members fetching water from one of the water sources

Stephen adds after the first borehole was repaired another community of Mpora village approached us and complained about their borehole which was producing little water and the handle had broken down for over a hear, this was becoming a problem because people could line up  for over 5 hours  to see that they get a jerrycan of water, we used the same procedure, we approached  Uganda Red Cross Fort-portal for spares  and  mobilized funds from the community and the borehole is now working very well thanks to ToroDev for giving us monthly facilitation which enables us to move and mobilize communities for improved service delivery.