Water Facilities for Rural Schools in Uganda

Due to COVID  19 pandemic all schools have been  closed in Uganda to prevent the transmission of COVID 19 to school children. Today (3th /August,2021) in a conversation with District Education Officer for Lyantonde has appreciated the role of providing water purifiers to schools in improving the quality of school enviroment that has led to improved  students academic performance  in the National examinations. According to the Uganda National Examiniation Board's  results "The schools that were supported with water purifiers have performed relatively better than  those students in  schools without safe drinking water " the District Education officer (DEO) has said. The DEO continued  to report that the district was  ranked the 10th best performing among 112 district in Uganda in the 2020 National examination results.  He has a suggestion that all schools should have  such  an enviroment with safe drinking before they reopen for children in this era of COVID 19 pandemic.  He attributed this, to the  role played by the performance of  students in the school with safe and clean drinking water this project( Sanitation Facilities for Rural Schools in Uganda) has provided. This project has reached out to 8 schools only and our plan is to reach out to 32  more school with water purifiers.  We want to appreciate  GlobalGiving foundation and her partners  for thier contribution  towards this impact.

Availability of Safe and clean water for students has been made one of the SOPs for schools to re-open following thier closure for a year due the COVID 19 pandemic. The Ministry of Education and sports in Uganda  has instructed that before any school re-opens for candidates they should be issued with a Certificates of Compliance. For  any  school to be issued with  such a certificate it  has to be with safe and clean drinking water at the school  for students .

The schools that benfited  from the  water purifying systems  were the first to be issued with certificates of compliance in Lyntonde district in South western Uganda . "Having a water purifying system added a lot  for a school to be issued with a Certificate of Compliance and  to re- open for her students;" the Inspector of schools in Lyantonde said in an interview with the project staff. All the shools that benefited from this project were the first to open for  thier students.

 A report  from the Headteacher of the befiting school indicate that, waterpurifiers have provided a tusted source of safe and clean water for sudents  during this Covid 19 period that require up take of a lot of water by students at school.

As OCE we are very grateful to GlobalGiving and her partners to help us reach this mile stone

“Water is life”! Says Mike (not real name) one of the students at St. John’s Comprehensive secondary school in Lyantonde district Uganda. He is on the team assigned to take care of the installed water purifying system at his school. He said that before the installation of the water purifying system, they used to get water from the school kitchen which is distant from their classrooms but now there is easy access to drinking water as the system was installed close to their classrooms.  “Provision of clean and safe drinking water has led to the reduction of water borne illnesses such as typhoid among the students in the school leading to regular school attendance and improved academic performance”

Great thanks to all the donors through GlobalGiving Foundation who have supported OCE’s interventions under the project “Water Facilities for rural Schools in Uganda”.

When we received about 37% of the cost of a water purifying system from our donors through GlobalGiving, we agreed with our contractor to start on the process of installing a water purifying system for this school. However before work could start, Uganda was put under total lockdown; all schools were closed and pupils asked to go home, there was a total ban on all public and private transport which made it impossible to reach the site to start work. Recently there has been a lift on some of the measures like transport. Our Contractor is now ready to start. We shall give more details on the progress of work in our next report as we hope work would have started then. We wish to sincerely thank all our donors for the great contributions made towards this project. May God bless you all. “Together we can”

Girls in schools with water purifying systems have performed relatively better than their counterparts in schools without water purifying systems in Lyantonde district. This is according to the most recent national examination results for 2019.  Reports from Mr. Herbat Bakenga the AG District Education Officer for Lyantonde district where this project is implemented indicated that safe and clean drinking water was key in proving a conducive learning environment for enhanced academic performance for the girl children in the district. He further appealed to OCE to reach more schools with such facilities that provide drinking water. In the reporting period, we plan to reach out to another additional school with a water purifying facility. We are grateful to our partners who have made donations on GlobalGiving Foundation to support reach this far.