Toshiba Tec Europe
The Toshiba Carbon Zero Scheme supports the ongoing activities to rehabilitate and maintain boreholes in Uganda. These are mainly boreholes which have fallen into disrepair, denying communities access to safe water and forcing people to boil water in order to make it safe, thereby contributing to CO2 emissions.
Major strides have been made in global health in recent decades, with 17,000 fewer children now dying per day than in 1990. However, 3.2% of children globally still die before their fifth birthday; in Uganda, 5.76% of children do not reach the age of 5.
Monica Koli is 25 and lives in Amin Eceja village in Dokolo District, Uganda, with her husband and 2 children. The village was affected by the insurgency of the Lord’s Resistance Army, which displaced many families and destroyed infrastructure throughout Northern Uganda, with many boreholes consequently falling into disrepair. In the absence of community boreholes, families and especially women who often bear the lion’s share of domestic duties, were often forced to walk long distances to gather water from unsafe sources such as open well, unprotected springs and ponds, which would often be shared with animals.
Monica vividly remembers walking long distances with her siblings to collect water from a well before the borehole was repaired and narrates that it was never enough because they only had enough time to visit the once a day because of other domestic duties. They also were unable to travel far into the forest to collect firewood due to fear of the rebels, so only had enough firewood to cook and not enough to purify their water.
Monica narrates how the repair of the borehole under the Toshiba Carbon Zero scheme has changed her family’s fortunes for the better: “Drinking impure water from the well brought us illnesses such as dysentery, typhoid, diarrhoea and worms. We were constantly ill and unfortunately could not afford the medication to treat these illnesses properly. With the repair of this borehole, we no longer suffer from these illnesses because the water supply is protected and cannot be contaminated by animals. With the borehole so close, I am also able to collect enough clean water for my family and still have spare time to do other chores.”
Thanks to the WASH sensitisation (WAter Sanitation and Hygiene workshops) received as part of the project, the family knows how to safely store water gathered from the borehole to keep it pure and practices good hygiene practices at home. The family is now overall in much better health all year round, with the children no longer frequently missing school due to illness. Monica now has much more time due to not travelling far to gather water and more funds available which she does not have to spend on medicine. She is therefore planning to start a small grocery business at her home, which will give her funds to invest in educating her children and to buy medicine if they become sick in future.
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