Prosper Kwigize
Father Juvenalis Mutalemwa, the head of Ntungamo Vocational College, is among the hundreds of seminarians who enrolled and studied at Ntungamo Minor Seminary.
The seminary is in Ngara District, Kagera Region of Tanzania, which is about 15 kilometers from the Kagera River.
After completing grade seven, he joined the school in 1980, preparing to enter secondary education in the Catholic Church system.
He and many of his colleagues relied on the Kizosi groundwater source, which was also relied on by other residents of Ntungamo and Kabalenzi villages in Ngara District.
“If it were not for the Kizosi groundwater source, I and many others would not be priests. I am genuinely hurt when I witness the environmental destruction and drying up of springs in the Kagera Region.”
The Kizosi spring is the source of the Mukizosi River water, which collects water from small springs, including Muwinkona and Kizosi, and travels about 20 kilometers from Kabalenzi Village to the Kagera River.
Ngara District in the Kigoma Region is among the areas in the Nile River basin where water services primarily depend on groundwater. According to the Ngara Water Authority, 100% of the water distributed to the community is groundwater from deep and shallow wells and natural springs flowing in various valleys.
The acting manager of the Ngara Water and Sanitation Authority, engineer Daudi Gwiyera, says that Ngara Town, with a population of about 24,062 and 6,375 households, according to the results of the 2022 population and housing census, relies on five (5) wells for water services to the community and public institutions such as schools and health centers.
Engineer Daudi mentions that due to population growth and climate change, groundwater, including springs, is increasingly depleted, endangering citizens’ well-being.
“Through groundwater sources, our authority produces 28,000 cubic liters out of the 3,450 cubic liters required daily,” Gwiyera notes.
The largest group experiencing immediate effects of water service becoming poor are preschool, primary, secondary, and tertiary school students.
Such groups without water, sanitation, and the environment, are at risk of disease outbreaks and encourage absenteeism.
Father Juvenalis explains that school life, especially for young people, requires a high level of care and that water is one of the most essential services in the upbringing of children in school.
“When we were young in this school, we relied only on rainwater because there was no alternative way to get water at school, so springs were our refuge, and the society at that time was preserving the environment of water sources like the apple of an eye,” Father Jumenalis emphasizes.
For his part, Deogratius Nshimilimana, a resident of Buhororo Village who also studied at the Ntugamo Minor Seminary in 1991, says his life and upbringing depended on groundwater sources.
Nshimilimana adds that until now he is proud to be part of the seminarians who were raised with support from the Kizosi spring and Muwinkona water sources located in Ntungamo.
“Listen, in those days, there was no piped water at all, and hundreds of students came here to fetch water; the beauty is that there were not many villagers living in this area,” emphasizes Nshimilimana.
He urges the community to value springs and groundwater, saying these are the only things that “will save us from the scourge of drought.”
Flora Eliakimu, a 20-year-old girl from Kumwuzuza Village in Mabawe Ward, at Kagera River Basin, is among the former students who dropped out of school due to poor social services, including a lack of water.
Eliakimu notes that she was forced to drop out of school after failing to cope with the lack of water at her school. The situation forced children to carry water from home to school, and at home, they were also faced with the difficult task of fetching water from far away.
She explains that she was forced to drop out of school after failing to cope with the lack of water at her school. This forced children to carry water from home to school, and at home, they were also faced with the difficult task of fetching water from far away.
“I was doing household chores, including fetching water from the Muwinkona Valley, where there is a high mountain. You climb it with a bucket on your head and another in your hand, you get home helpless, and still at school, they want you to go get water again, I failed and dropped out of school to take care of our household because my mother was unable to afford it due to living with a disability,” laments Eliakimu.
The lack of water in schools in many areas in Ngara, Karagwe, Kyerwa, and Misenyi districts hinders students from bathing and washing their clothes and denies them water for drinking. Thus, they are forced to abscond classes to fetch water.
This shows that despite the community’s indifference, school children still rely on groundwater for infrastructure. Sadru Majidu, a grade six student in one of the primary schools in Karagwe District, admits that groundwater sources are a saviour for education and that during the dry season, many children are being punished for being dirty.
“We students rely on the Katahoka water source here in Kayanga. We use its water for all activities, including drinking, cooking, washing school clothes, etc.; even our parents and guardians rely on it for gardening,” says Sadru Majidu.
This story was produced with support from NBI Secretariat (Nile-Sec), which, in partnership with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and with funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), implemented a program across the Nile Basin focused on shared groundwater aquifers. The project’s goal was to improve water resource management at both the national and basin levels.
The first phase concentrated on building knowledge and capacity for the sustainable use and management of significant transboundary aquifers within the Nile Basin. Three aquifer areas were selected for intervention: the Kagera aquifer shared by Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi; the Mt Elgon aquifer shared by Uganda and Kenya; and the Gedaref-Adigrat aquifer shared by Sudan and Ethiopia. These aquifers are located in various climates, including arid, semi-arid, and tropical regions.
Initially, the phase involved gathering existing data and creating a Shared Aquifer Diagnostic Report (SADA) for the three selected aquifers. The subsequent phase engaged in groundwater modeling to enhance understanding of the aquifers and analyze scenarios based on changes in climate and groundwater use.
