Geared at Promoting
citizens’ recognition on the right to safe water and good sanitation in Katakwi
District, Community
Integrated Development Initiative (CIDI) in its work identified several initiatives and recognized the need to
engage several stakeholders in Katwaki to achieve this. First, CIDI engaged and advocated to WaterAid Uganda
on the need to train several water boards in Katakwi District. The purpose of
which was to strengthen/enhance their capacities to perform their task better.
Among others, Katakwi Town Council Water Board was trained while Toroma Town
Board has also been registered with them for the next training.
Other moves
done to improve hygiene and sanitation were use of radio programs to educate
the community on the need for, their rights and responsibilities to safe water and
good sanitation and to challenge/task leaders to fulfill this human right/service delivery
need. Reports indicate that these radio
programs alongside several face to face engagements with the responsible
leaders caused improved responsiveness of the leaders to community needs; for
example, Katakwi district has integrated hygiene and sanitation in their local
government programs. They launched the action “KEEP TOROMA CLEAN”. This sanitation drive was introduced after
CIDI’s intervention and is conducted on the first Wednesday of each new month. Its
purpose is to promote the best practices of hygiene and good sanitation in the
district. During the sanitation drive, mobilization and education of the
communities on the best practices of sanitation and hygiene is done. So far,
about 150 households have been reached both within Toroma Town Board, neighboring
villages and the sub-counties. And an increase in the erection and utilization
of hygiene and sanitation facilities has also been registered as compared to
the previous years.
As
a motivation and sustainability strategy of this drive, Sub- Counties in this
regard are awarding the best performing villages Certificates of Merit for
adopting the best practices of hygiene and sanitation.
Finally,
through the training and empowerment gained, some communities have influenced
the District Water Office to give them water guard tablets. This has allowed
for those people to consume safe and clean drinking water and curb disease
outbreak, while others have through district dialogues with key stakeholders
demanded for cleaning of their contaminated water points and testing of the water
quality that was presumably substandard. It can therefore be said, that community led advocacy and
the leaders’ improvement in responding to community needs has consequently led
to improved hygiene and sanitation standards in Katakwi district.
