UGANDA - Walking for water
Chief Reporter Jordan Moates visits a community in Northern Uganda in need of clean water.
Last updated 31st Oct 2017
Walking for water, a daily ritual right across Africa.
For many they do so in the knowledge the water they end up drinking will be dirty.
For communities in Uganda preventing dehydration can mean drinking from a pond, a swamp or a stagnant water source.
In each of those scenarios there is a high chance they are sharing their water with animals.
We are in Yumbe, in the North Western corner of this East African nation.
There are hundreds of small communities dotted across this area, all in desperate need of a clean water source.
We stopped with one group of people, who pleaded for help.
Walking with them to their water source through a field it became clear why they were determined to be heard.
They were filling bottles from what can only be described as a swamp shared with cattle.
David Hall from Fields of Life says “the cows will drink the water, and of course the cows will also relieve themselves.”
“That means there will be pee and poo in the water and all the bacteria that goes with it.”
“That will cause things like diarrhoea.”
This is a best case scenario for these communities, diseases like bilharzia, cholera and typhoid are all common.
It is hard for us to understand, given the access we have to medical facilities, but these diseases are fatal when you live in rural Africa.
115 people die every hour from disease linked to contaminated water.
David Hall says, “For us diarrhoea is a few days of upset stomach.”
“For young children here in Uganda, you will finds they become dehydrated very quickly.”
“If the only source of water they have is contaminated you end up just making things worse”
“As a result it is very easy for young people to die.”
The people living in this community are humble; they don’t want to cause trouble.
They don’t want to think about what the future holds if they continue to drink from this dirty swamp.
Pointing to the stagnant water one man tells me “it is used by animals, my people get typhoid and suffer long periods of sickness.”
A mother, herself only a teenager, says we have to walk a very long distance to get clean water, please, please, please get us a bore hole.”
Wise beyond her years, her parting words were “don’t deceive us.”
An indication her hopes had been dashed many times before.
These are typical of the communities that benefit from Fields of Life.
Drilling teams can revitalise an area and give them a life they only ever dreamt about.