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We are very excited to share that we have been able to construct a 10,000 liters rainwater collection system at a primary school, Burimba Primary School, which is located on top of the Lake Bunyonyi surrounding hills.
Far the majority of Uganda’s rural population, which includes those living in the villages that surround Lake Bunyonyi, has no access to safe drinking water. While water is known to be the source of life, this is nothing but heart breaking and reason for us to make it one of our goals to bring development at this point.
The people living on the steep hills that surround Lake Bunyonyi depend on the lake for water, which means that they have to walk a long way down the hills and then walking that same way up again while carrying a heavy waterfilled 10 or 20 liters jerry can. Very often it is the children being sent for that task; not only is it extremely heavy for the children to carry a water filled jerry can back home that way, also it unfortunately means that they are structurally missing precious hours at school.
Burimba Primary school is the first school we selected for donating a rainwater collection system. An important selection criterion in this has been, among other, to know how many people from the community, apart from pupils, will benefit from the system. In rural Uganda, it’s quite common that families who live in the direct vicinity of a school make use of its water supply. Burimba Primary School has 300 pupils, with often more children from one family visiting the school. Altogether, an estimated 500 people can benefit from its water supply. Research done ahead of getting started with this project had taught us that the school already had a 10,000 liters rainwater collection tank, that was not functioning very well though. Our help provides for both the optimal functioning of this first already present tank and the additional construction of this second tank, meaning that the total water collection capacity ultimately amounts to 20,000 liters.
While the periods from half October to half December and March to June are official rainy seasons in Uganda, the southwestern part of the country, to which the Lake Bunyonyi area belongs, is known to have at least some rainfall all year round. Therefore, the people living in the direct vicinity of Burimba Primary School can basically always benefit from the rainwater collection system.
The realizing of this rainwater collection system is another example of our strategy to invest in tools and facilities in such a way that large groups can benefit, whereby our first focus is always on children. We have in 2018 provided a motorboat to guarantee the children of Bwama Primary School daily safe transport over Lake Bunyonyi, to which we added five landing docks to facilitate boarding and embarking the boat which the entire community uses for short mooring; in 2019 we constructed a Swimming Instruction Center from where we give swimming lessons for children, and earlier this year a second motorboat, serving the same purpose as the first, has arrived from the Netherlands.
Credits for realizing the rainwater collection system go to Kabareebe Hardware, the company that has delivered all the parts needed for the construction as well as built the installation, and also to the team of Burimba Primary School and some parents who have in great ways volunteered in this project. Last but not least we thank Trap-In Uden and Foundation Uden WereldWijd for making this project financially possible.
We want to realize more rainwater collection systems at schools around Lake Bunyonyi in the near future. If you are interested in financially contributing to a project please visit the section ‘How You Can Help’. Please feel free to send us an e-mail in case you have any questions. Every contribution, no matter how small, will as always be highly appreciated and helps us realize our goals.
HWMCO-Nederland & NiCA Foundation
‘We Fight Poverty by Bringing Development.’
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