JW Buganga
Kampala-Uganda
Volunteerism and Development in Uganda
Organisation History
Once upon a time, the UCDV was in
2 persons. It all began with the development initiatives of Eddie Mutebie, who
went around cleaning filthily unhygienic slum areas in Kampala, sensitizing
affected communities on proper hygiene and sanitation, and mobilizing volunteer
youth in the localities to be the solution to their problems. In 2002, UCDV was
born. It got its home in Mengo. As a community-based organization (CBO) in
2004, it mobilized and fundraised extensively to expand its operation to a
wider central region of the country, which has Kampala City, Mukono District,
Wakiso, Luwero, and Rakai. It very first funder was the Church of Jesus Christ
of the Latter Day Saints, a Christian charity from the United States of America
(USA). And in 2010, it got elevated to a National Non Government Organisation
(NNGO), a level that accelerated it water access and livelihood development
mission in the countryside and beyond, covering areas like Tororo, Buikwe,
Jinja, Masaka, Mbale, Rwanda, and most recently, Namutumba District in Busoga.
Ambitiously, it is eager to expand further to increasingly sky-rocketing demand
for safe-drinking water in the rapidly growing urban centers, and in
inaccessible rural areas.
Programme Title
The programme title
shall be: ‘Safe Water Access and
Sustainable Livelihood Development Programme.’
Programme Description
The programme design is based on
the needs assessed, feasibility studies, and priorities made in relation to the
area and population needs. Information about the community needs is obtained in
light of the media reports about the awe of huge humanitarian problem such as
acute water shortages, including issues like 3 hours in queue waiting for a
chance to fetch water, security problem associated to wanting to be first to
fetch water at the water source, arising from mainly the women and the girl
child; and contact by concerned leadership, who upon recognizing our
humanitarian responsibilities visit or call us to intervene. Despite the
urgency of the matter, we are obliged to investigate by contacting a needs
assessment and confirm the strongest need for water comparable to other areas
of the country. This followed by a feasibility study to ascertain the
topographic desirability and the level of water table. Water-sheds and areas
with high water tables are favored. The entire fact-finding is done by a 2
different teams: a team headed
consisting of social workers with inclination to community development, and
another involving environmentalists, water engineers, public health
specialists, community members (beneficiaries), elders, and local leaders.
Decisions made are an outcome of several stakeholder meetings, who agree on a
mechanism, involving agreement to a budget incurrence plan, roles and
contributions of different parties, and signing of memoranda by a
representative from every party. The signing of the memoranda of understandings
marks the beginning of implementation exercises led by the UCDV, and monitored
by a joint monitoring team consisting of funders and community beneficiary
representatives. The representatives are democratically selected by the
communities to be part of both the implementation and monitoring teams.
Essentially, UCDV does the man-power recruitment, assignment of tasks,
coordination, and remuneration concerns. Among the UCDV task-force are
programme director, projects team leaders, finance and accountability manager,
field officers, quality control manager, community mobilization officer,
programme interns and volunteers, and community and school affiliated clubs. On
completion of the protect community elects a water-user management team, which
is charged with carrying out water-source maintenances and ensuring of proper
hygiene and sanitation around the water-source environment, and mobilization of
funds from among beneficiaries to make repairs. Committee members receive
training in all this aspects of water source management before handover. And on
the commissioning day, a very colorful one, with presence of all stakeholders,
including representatives of the funding institution and partners, the
programme report is read and information shared among partners, certificate of
completion is issued by a monitoring team to the implementation agencies,
further guidelines given on water-source protection and maintain, water user
management committee inaugurated, and announcement of official handover of the
water facility made. This marks the end of the programme work in the area.
Primary Goals
- To facilitate access to free safe water and improved livelihoods of communities whose rights to access is not guaranteed.
Secondary Goals
a)
To promote the spirit of volunteerism so that
target beneficiaries can be solutions to their own problems.
b)
To reduce incidences of sexual violence
associated to sending girls and women to distant areas to fetch water.
c)
To increase household revenue in areas known to
purchase domestic water expensively, at a cost between 200 and 1000 Uganda
Shillings.
d)
To reduce the incidences of preventable diseases
such as cholera, typhoid, malaria, dysentery, and bilharzias, which claim lives
of mainly children below the age of 5.
e)
To promote education of the girl child whose
education time is spent doing domestic chores and moving distant areas to fetch
water.
f)
To promote environment conservation practices,
which provide safeguards against global warming, natural disasters, disease
epidemics, famine, malnutrition, and inflation.
Success Metrics to Primary Goals or Objectives
a)
Scale-up volunteerism (burungi bwansi) by 60% in 5
years
b)
Increase retention of children in primary and
secondary schools by 50% in rural countryside education centers in 5 years (due
to diseases, burden of responsibilities at home (fetching water in far areas),
early pregnancies, and household poverty.
c)
Reduce sexual related violence by 70% in 5
years.
d)
Guarantee 2 meals a day in 80% of the households
in 5 years.
e)
Reduce incidence of water-borne diseases by 90%
in 5 years.
f)
Household natural (environment) conservation by
60% of household heads within their private lands in 5 years.
Direct Beneficiary Groups
a)
Children below 5 years;
b)
Children below 18 years;
c)
Youth between 18 and 35 years;
d)
Women;
e)
And the elderly.
Over all Expected Outcomes
There will be more community
involvement in solving their immediate problems rather than wait for good
Samaritans to think, plan, and act on their behalf to clean their immediate
environment, or mobilize projects for them to dig pit latrines, and water
sources, even with their own leadership in place. This time around the
community, through their leadership will identify problem and mobilize
financial and human resources to solve them, accordingly.
Time will be saved for children
and women to fetch water and go about their domestic chores. In this regard,
room is left for parents to send their children to school, and safeguard them
against sexual-related violence associated to letting children and women go to
very distant and insecure areas in search for water. More children will attain
higher education or its equivalent, attainable through study of technical and
vocation studies, which increase employability.
Prevention and control of
preventable diseases such malaria, typhoid, diarrhea, dysentery, which claim
millions of children, annually; this increases household expenditures on
medicine in efforts to save life. The stretching of household finances which
deprives families of vital goods such as education and proper nutrition is
remedied, so much that families get in position to save so much to meet those
critical development needs.
The efforts to ensure sustainable
free and clean water supply invokes similar efforts to conserve nature. In
doing so, a wide scale of epidemiological, economic, including food security; and
sustainability of life systems that are supportive of each other.
