A rainwater tank can revolutionise life

Gender Equality and Women Empowerment for Development (GWEFODE), a women’s self-help group from southern Uganda, supplies needy households run by women with rainwater tanks. These guarantee households easy and safe access to drinking water, reduce the risk of water-related diseases and protect women and girls from sexual assault on the long marches to public water points.
 

Each of these brick tanks in the shape of giant jugs holds 1,500 litres of rainwater, which is collected via the roofs of the houses. Several households share one tank. Members of these households help build the cisterns with their labour or by contributing locally available materials. This project phase is realised within four months.

Another one-day meeting with around 50 people will focus on raising awareness and the correct maintenance of the tanks. This also includes topics such as water hygiene and sanitary hygiene (WASH). Various methods of water hygiene are presented, such as boiling, treatment with chlorine solution (sodium hypochlorite) or the use of sand filters. The roofs from which the water is collected must be kept clean, the openings of the cisterns must be protected and coarse particles in the incoming water must be filtered out or otherwise removed.

“We have also learnt that supporting the poorest communities to build sustainable water and sanitation systems has a transformative effect,” explains Lydia Komuhangi, Chair of GWEFODE. “And that goes beyond the obvious improvements in health and hygiene. The active participation of local people in our projects leads to increased self-efficacy in the community, which is proud to have met its most urgent needs itself.”

The project enables participants to experience how important it is to allow women to participate in decision-making. This strengthens the awareness of one’s own effectiveness and the understanding of civil rights. This will enable women and families to stand up for themselves better in future and also shape the development of their own communities more successfully.