Rainwater harvesting in water-scarce communities saves families the time and cost of buying clean water from a nearby town.
The construction of 1500-liter concrete rainwater jars has provided jobs and business opportunities for local orphans.
Beneficiaries paid about six percent of the cost of the jars; those who could not afford to pay received support from their neighbors.
RAKAI, February 6, 2009 -- Agnes Nakalema is a 26-year-old single mother in the Southwestern Uganda District of Rakai, where the first HIV/AIDS cases in Uganda were reported in the early 1980s. Agnes’ husband died of HIV/AIDS several years ago, leaving her with four children between the ages of four and 10. Yet Agnes, a skilled gardener, is optimistic about life and says she has many reasons to be happy.
One reason is that these days she gets water for both drinking and washing right in her own compound, thanks to a 1500-liter concrete rainwater harvesting jar that was constructed for her by the Uganda Rain Water Association (URWA), using funds from the World Bank’s Development Marketplace competition. Before the jar was constructed, Agnes had to spend long hours fetching water, or had to buy 20-litre jerrycans for up to Ugs.500 (about US$0.30) each, depending on the season. Using an average of four jerrycans per day, her family was spending more than a dollar a day on water alone.
“I used to spend five to six hours every two days fetching water from Kyotera town,” Agnes explains with a smile. “This meant that I would not make any money to take care of my family because I had no time to cultivate my own or other people’s gardens.”
“This water jar has changed my life,” Agnes says. “When we have good rainfall, it fills with clean water for drinking and washing clothes. These days I have time to cultivate some gardens for a living. I make some money and also have time to grow some of my own food.”
Christine Nambi, 29, is another person whose family life has been transformed by a rainwater harvesting jar.
“Before we had this rainwater jar,” she said, “life was nearly impossible. The children would have to miss school and I would not be free to cultivate my garden because we had to go looking for water. Buying it from a water vendor was worse because a 20-litre jerrycan could go up to Ugs.1000 (about US$0.60) during the dry season.
Because of the time she saves by having water in her compound, and using some capital from her husband, a taxi driver, Christine now has a small kiosk where she sells some basic groceries – salt, sugar, curry powder, maize flour, and beans. She makes about Ugs.40,000 ($24) per month, which she says is a good supplement to what her husband earns. She believes that her family of five has a better quality of life due to the rainwater harvesting jar.
“I am now able to wash my family’s clothes, my children are clean and I have food in the garden,” Christine says. “I am more peaceful and am very grateful for what URWA did for me.”
Agnes Nakalema and Christine Nambi are among the 546 beneficiaries of the rainwater harvesting jars supplied in Rakai district by URWA, which used its US$198,200 award from the World Bank’s Global Development Marketplace to implement a roofwater harvesting project in HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis-affected households in the water-stressed districts of Rakai and Masaka for a period of two years.
The project, which ended last year, constructed a total of 1100 tanks. The beneficiaries, more than 90 percent of them women (a majority of them widowed), each had to contribute Ugs.30,000 (about $18) for the construction of a clean water filtering jar, whose total cost was Ugs.183,000 ($110). Owing to the gravity of the clean water supply situation in the two districts, most beneficiaries readily contributed, while some others were supported by their better-off neighbors to raise the required contribution.
In addition to providing clean water, the project also trained masons and apprentices who made money building the jars. Some of them have gone into business constructing the jars. Most of the apprentices were orphans who had dropped out of school because they could not pay the required fees. The project has also promoted better hygiene and peace, since some people were fighting for water.
The districts authorities have said that this is one of the most cost-effective programs they have been involved with, and they plan to ask for more support from the donors to scale up the project, especially among the elderly, poor and needy communities.
“This was one of the most successful projects we have had in our sub-county,” Edward Mugerwa, the Local Council Chairman for Nabisaga Sub-County in Rakai district, said of the water jar initiative. “However, we are sad to hear that it has ended, because water is one of the biggest problems in the district. Even if we got just two more tanks for each of our 38 villages in this sub-county, we would be more than satisfied.”
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