In Summary
Not everyone can easily come by safe drinking water, yet there are those who can, but don’t because of poor water sources. A team of university students is ensuring there are fewer cases like this though cleaning projects and a jerrycan
There are more than 1.2 billion people relying on unsafe drinking water world over, if United Nations statistics are anything to go by. And the bitter pill of truth is that a great portion of these are actually in position to access a free flowing water source but still consume contaminated water.
The cookie always starts to crumble when the water source is forsaken in a numbing sanitation state. But the unfortunate bit is that some people especially in the urban areas, where there is no luxury of free firewood, are simply too poor that the idea of investing charcoal or an electricity unit in boiling water is perceived as wastage of the already limited resources.
It is with these facts in mind that Ian Waiswa, a second year Population Studies student at Makerere University decided to fine-tune the broad objectives of EUNISCA so as to channel the main focus on the provision and sensitisation of masses on the essence of safe drinking water with urban slums and suburbs as top priority. EUNISCA (Empowering Ugandan Natives in Science, Creativity and Art) is a non-profit making organisation that is made up of 42 registered members, all university students, and several volunteers.
According to Waiswa, founder and director at EUNISCA, it was during his Se nior Six vacation while volunteering with the Office of Relief and Development Support (ORSD) that he picked the inspiration to start up a platform through which youth would reach out to the masses, preaching the gospel of safe water, safer lives.
“By then I was volunteering and working with farmers based in the districts of Jinja, Kaliro, Iganga and Busia. These are not arid areas. They have plenty of free flowing water.
But sadly, people drink from the stream without any boiling or treatment whatsoever! The water sources themselves were in a sorry state—always filled with garbage. Least wonder the cases of diarrhoea and typhoid were rampant in these areas.” Waiswa notes.
It is with this experience that when he entered university, he had his eyes focused on creating a difference in this regard. And it was not long before he found other students of like mind.
Together with 11 others, they formed the EUNISCA umbrella at Makerere University. The organisation’s wider objective was to empower locals in all aspects, especially science, creativity and art by basically sharing knowledge acquired in lecture rooms with locals for application in daily life.
Locals cleaning Kajebejo Well in Kikoni. A team of university students under the auspices of EUNISCA are encouraging communities to ensure their drinking water is safe. They do this by cleaning water sources and also by providing jerrycan-like devices that purify water using solar energy. PHOTO by MATHIAS WANDERA
However, EUNISCA has since zeroed down to the area of public health. They have not only embarked on the task of emphasising the importance of boiling water for drinking purposes, at both school and family level, but have gone an extra mile to clean the sources of water.
Bujilinya Well in Kawala, a Kampala suburb, initially a contaminated water source over-burdened with waste, is now a safe water haven, after Waiswa and his team started cleaning it monthly.
“A clean water source to us always comes as the first step to ensuring the safety of water. But we also brought this development as a way of challenging the locals. Initially they would find us cleaning and just look on. It really poses a challenge when you find outsiders cleaning a water source that you benefit from.
“Usually some locals join us to clean a water sources for the second and third time. But the fourth time it is us who join them,” Bagio Anthony Anyoli, a Makerere University student and EUNISCA member explains, his face beaming with a smile of accomplishment.
Kajebejo Well in Kikoni was also recently added to the list and the response from the locals was so good that the EUNISCA team has simply donated cleaning equipment and thel cleaning has been left to the locals who do it without much supervision.
Introducing the Solvatten unit
The team’s biggest stride into extending safe drinking water to the grass-root citizen has come with the introduction of the Solvatten jerrycan.
This is a portable unit for heating and treating water and comes in form of the usual 20-litre jerrycan. The unit is made up of two separate containers that are both covered with a transparent surface and together hold 10litres of water.
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Locals cleaning Kajebejo Well in Kikoni. A team of university students under the auspices of EUNISCA are encouraging communities to ensure their drinking water is safe. They do this by cleaning water sources and also by providing jerrycan-like devices (inset) that purify water using solar energy. PHOTO by MATHIAS WANDERA