MAIN SOURCE OF WATER THEN
I am talking about a successful project that the government of Uganda has drawn lessons from and is committed to meeting the cost of replication of the model in other parts of the country. A village where my dad was raised, where my grandparents lay having succumbed to death that could have been prevented had there been roads, decent means of transport and functional health facility. This is a village where it was acceptable for a woman and her child to die during labour or shortly after delivery, children dying of measles, diarrhoea and malaria. It is a village where parents could not access schools to educate their children, where water holes filled with run off were the main source of water.
We told stories of patients dying on the way to the main hospital in Mbarara 40 km away, stories of children not going to school because schools were many miles away from where they lived, where children could not go back to school because they could not find what to eat while at school. This is generally a village a where life was viewed as impossible that most families migrated to other districts in search of schools, water, better roads, health facilities and fertile soils.
“The people of that village are backward; they are people from the mountains, they did not send their children to schools because they do not believe in education, they are dying because they prefer seeking care from traditional healers to health workers, the women do not like to give birth in health facilities and many more biased conclusions were made about people of Ruhiira. I ask myself whether the people of this community had any options. I am very convinced that, had there been functional schools, had there been roads, health units and all that we are seeing now, the stories about Ruhiira would have been be different.
I cannot say that with this contribution from MVP, Ruhiira village is now 100% perfect with; no child deaths, no HIV/AIDS, no TB, zero malaria, there is still more to be done. I appreciate that this is a process with very many actors involved and if all these actors agree that this situation is unacceptable then Karamoja and other areas where the MVP model will be replicated shall tell a different story. The past eight years with MVP have given us a different story to tell. We can now boast about water in our compounds; not my grand parents’ water hole anymore, electricity, improved methods of agriculture, improved schools with school feeding programs, roads, health units, a functional- I mean, a functional theatre that has saved very many mothers’ and babies’ lives, the community health workers – the biggest asset to this community and many more interventions that my grandparents, other relatives and neighbours should have lived to see. Now is the time to hold our leaders and our government accountable so that we sustain whatever has been started.
My neighbours in Karamoja region, get ready for a different story – a story of hope, when the MVP model is rolled out to your region. However, the story shall be told if the community and government pledge their support.