Peer Report | BPR's Annette Fay visits Protos and JESE in Fort Portal

Traveling over from Kenya, I visited the PROTOS Integrated Water Resource Management project on Lake George in western Uganda. Due to time constraints, I only met with JESE (Joint Efforts to Save the Environment.) My site visit wasn't of projects specifically funded by BPR, but of different examples of the work JESE is doing with PROTOS. I was very impressed; they have three main programs in Sustainable Agriculture, Water & Sanitation, and Biodiversity Conservation. They are working on multiple levels in each: training communities, training trainers, connecting with local and national governments and working with multi-national organizations. This comprehensive approach is the key to their success, as their consistent growth since 1994 demonstrates.

We drove out to Mahyoro Moslem Primary School to see what JESE has done there. They have provided the school with a 4-unit latrine and they began a WATSAN club for grades 3 to 5. We observed the students using a “tippy-tap,” or hand-washing station in front of the latrines, and then the club sang several WATSAN songs for us.

Their WATSAN club assembles its 25 members monthly. These pupils have been taught how to use and maintain the tippy-tap that's located near the school latrines. In the club, they learn about sanitation and hygiene through songs that they in turn teach their classmates. The club is run by WATSAN patrons that JESE has trained, one male and one female teacher. At this school, the WATSAN club has been meeting for two years. The children in the club have all built hand-washing stations in their homes for family use, that the patrons have visited to inspect. They all also report less sickness than before JESE began the WATSAN program at their school.

One of JESE's social workers that trained the patrons, Grace, accompanied us and reported two problems the “tippy-taps” are experiencing are that both hand soap that is supplied and the jerry cans are stolen if left out. To address the problem, students are now mixing OMO (a powdered soap) with water in the can instead of just water and at night they're bringing in the part of the tippy-tap where the jerry can is connected.

I was disturbed to see at this school that UNICEF had constructed 18 latrines in addition to the 4 JESE had previously constructed; for a school of 220 children, this ratio doesn't make any sense. The Kenyan government recommends one latrine per 25 girls or 30 boys - not one per 10 girls. Let's hope the UNICEF representative can collaborate more down the road and avoid wasting funds where they could be better used otherwise.

We then visited the home and farm of Ezra Bomotura, featuring an EcoSan latrine. He adopted this technology after he attended a training organized by JESE and participated in an exposure visit in mid-2006. After returning home, JESE provided him with two pounds of cement and he constructed the latrine with local materials. He's just beginning to experiment with using the urine, mixed with water, to irrigate a portion of his pineapple farm. The results he showed us were impressive – the largest pineapples were those watered with the mixture! He's clearly sectioned off where he is and isn't using the mixture to demonstrate, without a doubt, the results to fellow farmers. Through another agricultural JESE training for farmers, Ezra learned to use compost in farming to keep the soil healthy and he showed us the area in his garden where he's doing just that. You can see a marked difference between the soil that's enriched from the compost and the drier, exposed soil without compost. He has also become a Community Development Promoter through JESE.

The Vorembo village WATSAN committee showed us their shallow well (of 14 ft) fitted with a Niya hand pump. It's been working since 2006 and they collect quarterly dues of 1,000 Uganda shillings. Something had broken inside the pump, thanks to the savings from collecting dues they were able to repair the part and they now have a balance of 10,000 Uganda shillings. Before they were collecting water at a nearby stream and they've noticed fewer cases of typhoid/diarrhea since they began using the (covered) well. Mr. Bomotura told us about a time that someone had diarrhea and defecated IN the stream....

Next we visited the Mahyoro landing site, or portion of the Lake George shore where fishermen unload their catch of fish, clean their nets and wait during the day to fish illegally at night. JESE has built an EcoSan latrine here that is not being used properly, due to difficulties in properly training the population. The landing site is a challenging location because it involves educating all users on proper usage – and many users do not belong to the community or are transient. While it's a huge improvement for the landing site to have any latrines (because prior to the EcoSan people were defecating openly or in the lake, which is their water source for all uses), the EcoSan is not being used correctly. But we saw a hippo!

Our last stop was to see an improved spring that JESE completed, including spring capping and a small tank. Only one spigot was functional, but the part that opens/close it was missing so water was flowing/leaking from this spigot. Patrick inserted a piece of wood to stop the flow of water. The collection tank, which was rounded over, was full hence the flowing water. Fifty households are currently using this water source.

This was a great exposure visit to JESE's work and made obvious PROTOS' reasons for working with them – an excellent organization!