SDG 5 IN UGANDA

Stella Adongo’s story

Stella Adongo at work whilst a boy waits to have his school uniform adjusted

The Toshiba CarbonZero 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 to make it safe, thereby contributing to CO2 emissions.

Women in sub-Saharan Africa typically face vast domestic work burdens in the household compared to men and often have little to no control over how their earnings are spent, with male relatives responsible for financial decision-making.

19-year-old Stella Adongo lives in Bung village, Kole district and is a user of the borehole repaired in Bung through the Toshiba Carbon Zero scheme. She never had the opportunity to complete her primary education, having been forced to drop out in the last year of primary school due to her parents lacking the funds to continue supporting her. A major challenge facing the family was apparently that, with the Bung borehole being non-operational at that time, the family was having to spend large amounts of money on medicines to treat diseases like diarrhoea and typhoid which affected them due to being forced to drink water from an unimproved source. Stella also struggled to attend school even when funds were available as she was often forced to spend many hours each day collecting water from a far-off stream and gathering firewood to help purify the water. These activities came to dominate her life after she dropped out of school entirely.

The rehabilitation of the Bung borehole has had a huge impact on Stella’s life, because having a pure water supply close to her home relieved her of the burden of having to spend hours every day travelling long distances to collect water and firewood. With the time saved, Stella had the opportunity to take up her education again, joining the local vocational college to take up a tailoring course.

Using the skills from her course, Stella now runs her own tailoring business from her home, and usually attends to at least 10 customers per day. This brings in significant income, as she is typically able to earn around 20,000 shillings ($5.56) per day,and sometimes double this during Christmas and other holiday seasons. She makes clothes from scratch to order from Kitenge, the brightly coloured fabrics available throughout Africa, as well as making school uniforms and repairing and adjusting clothes.

With the money received, Stella is able to hire fertile land to grow crops on a subsistence basis as well as buying clothes for her own young children. She is also able to put small amounts of money aside each week, which in due course will be used to support her children’s education. She says: “I have so much appreciation for the Toshiba Carbon Zero Scheme. Thank you Toshiba and CO2balance for the good work you have done in Bung.”

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