District Celebrates "Sanitation Week" in Nabitovu Village

This week, we have a very exciting addition to our sanitation work in the Healthy Villages: the District Water Office is celebrating international “Sanitation Week” in our villages, focusing particularly in Nabitovu Village.  District officials will be helping us out in all of our five “Healthy Villages,” but a HUGE number of university students, studying health and sanitation development courses, are working in Nabitovu Village today (Wendesday), Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  These students will be working with the LC members and VHT members to do house-to-house outreach, going around and teaching families to construct sanitation measures.  UVP is, as normal, providing subsidized materials for the process, though the District might pitch in for additional materials in a day or so. 

 

Nabitovu Village is huge – it has about 360 households, and because of the way that houses and gardens are laid out, houses are spread apart instead of being clustered together in the middle of the village.  Thus, reaching out to every area of Nabitovu is quite difficult, and having this type of manpower at our disposal (about 50 enthusiastic and educated university students!), is going to allow us to make a greater impact in Nabitovu than we could have ever done on our own – at least, in a week’s time. 

Sanitation work will continue, as stated, until Saturday, and then take a rest on Sunday.  On Monday (World Water Day), the district is sponsoring a "Sanitation Celebration" in Nabitovu.  District officials and Sub-County officials will attend, and the village will put on entertainment in the form of music, dance, and drama.  UVP's second shallow well in Nabitovu will also be commissioned on this day.  UVP staff members will also take this time to address the entire village of Nabitovu (likely a few hundred villages will be gathered), announcing that this day is not the end of sanitation work in Nabitovu, but rather the beginning.  While the district will cease its work on Monday, UVP and the Nabitovu VHT and other leaders will continue to work across the village, helping families to improve on their sanitation standards, and thus improve health and standard of living.  

 

Yesterday, representatives from the University crew met with our Nabitovu VHT and the Nabitovu LC members.  They agreed to divide up into 6 groups, with accompanying villagers for each group, to move around the village helping families build sanitation measures.  The work starts this morning, and I will post another blog at the end of the week, to let everyone know how it goes!!