Chris Ahimbisibwe
August 12, 2013
Millions of pupils in rural schools in Uganda still struggle to access water and sanitation facilities.
The schools where such pupils study from are part of the over half of the developing world’s primary schools that do not have access to water and sanitation facilities.
This leads to several problems such as loss of school days as the pupils travel long distanced to fetch water. Worldwide, about 443 million school days are lost each year due to water-related diseases.
One of such schools is Bushozi primary school in Uganda’s mountainous district of Buhweju in southwestern region. The school depends on a neighboring shallow well. But the water well is drying up as a result of the degradation of the wetland which has been the well’s catchment area. According to the residents, local leaders are among the people who have degraded the wetland.
The United Nations estimates that Sub-Saharan Africa alone loses 40 billion hours per year collecting water; the same as an entire year’s labor in all of France.
