Life in Kisabo Village Pt. 2
Life in Kisabo Village Pt. 2
Just 1 kilometre down the road from Muhaha, where the Acts Uganda team broke ground in February, is a village named Kisabo. It’s nestled amongst deep green rolling hills, which look breathtaking from afar.
If you get a little closer though, you can see that, for the 120 families who live there, those same hills are breathtaking in a very different sense. Because Kisabo Village does not currently have access to water, those are the hills many of them must climb, multiple times a day, to find water. They make for a long, slippery and rocky walk and, because of those same slopes and hills, the natural rainfall pushes dirt into the community’s water source – the source they use for all of their activities. Life in Kisabo is limited without access to clean, disease-free water.
15 year old Florence from Kisabo Village said: “With clean water we can develop and be important people.”
What is it that you would say you need to be an important person?
Likely the answer wouldn’t be clean water. Many of us have access to multiple taps in our houses – none of them more than 15 steps to get to, and each of them flowing clean water.
Do you ever stop to think about what your life would be like if you had to rearrange your entire day to get water?
Can you even imagine what you’d miss out on if 30% of your time was devoted to finding water to drink? Can you imagine the physical effort it would take you to walk such a distance several times each day?
You and I might not think about these things regularly, but Florence does, and so does Eunice.
Eunice also lives in Kisabo Village. She has 7 children, and at 38 years old, with only 7 years of school herself, Eunice refers to herself as a peasant. Every day she works hard in the village garden digging – working with all her might to support her family.
Like so many mothers, Eunice is resilient. She lives with an immeasurable desire to give her best to her children. Eunice is hopeful that after hard work in her garden, the harvest will allow her to save and buy a goat or hens for development. Despite daily limitations, Eunice dreams of providing her 4 daughters and 3 sons a future with opportunities:
“We have poor water quality in our area. To drink it, I first boil and strain it because it’s always muddy and we share it with animals because it’s not protected. My children feel sick most of the time which makes me borrow money to take them to the hospital. I hope to have a smile on my face one day when I will fetch my first jerry can of clean water.”
It was a year ago, on World Water Day – a global day set aside by the UN to highlight the importance of clean water – that we sent out our first COVID-19 email, asking our community to give in the face of so many unknowns to help those beyond our borders. So much has happened in this past year and you’ve stood with us throughout it.
Clean water and handwashing remains the best defense against every virus, and these are the basic principles we’ll extend to Kisabo as they continue to grow in resilience. On March 22nd, this World Water Day, together with you, we hope to raise the funds necessary to place a Tap Stand in Kisabo Village. Your gift will help bring Florence, Eunice, and so many others clean, disease-free water for life! And right now, Choose to Give – a local business initiative – is matching all gifts to bring clean water to Kisabo Village.
Life in Kisabo doesn’t have to be limited: when you give water, you can grow resilience.
If you’re curious about numbers, you can see the Kisabo Village Project budget HERE.