By,Naswiru Sekamate
Water is a necessity for all living beings, and access to safe water is a basic human right. Despite the world experiencing exponential growth in all areas with advance in science and technology, 40% of people are experiencing water scarcity, and UWWI is working tirelessly to bridge the gap of water scarcity in the world, currently Leaders and people of Gomba district are very happy and grateful to the Uganda women Water Initiative for the effort that they are doing in empowering, and skilling the women and girls in Gomba district. Hakim Basajjangabbothesenior assistant secretary kabulasoke sub – countyGomba district appreciated the work which has been done by Uganda womens water initiative basically by dealing with women in the community, He notes that UWWI has increased the livelihood of women in households, women have learnt to start some small projects which they can use to generate some income to support their families.
“We as the leadership of Kabulasoke Sub – county, we are here to give our support to these partners who came in our sub – county and we are here to conform that we shall give them the necessary support they need in order to fulfill their activities which they have planned to do in Kabulasoke Sub – county. As you know that we as the local government we can’t reach everywhere in the community so when we get the partners like the Uganda Womens water Initiative who are our partners here we just appreciate their work and am here to confirm that we shall give them the necessary support which they need from us in order to fulfill their activities” Hakim said
According to Florence kisakye the probation officer Gomba district UWWI has many good programs for our community and mostly those households that are vulnerable she adds that UWWI has done good to women it has empowered them and with what has been given and given to us by the DCAO – Gomba District, we are seeing our ecosystem is going to be put up we are seeing that they have promised to work together with the VISLA groups with in Gomba and this will empower women economically, we have seen UWWI coming up with good enterprises around 50 women that have been empowered. Women have been empowered socially, economically, they even know their rights.
Florence Nakakande the community development officer kabulasoke sub – county gomba district together with Allan Muwanga in a special way thanked UWWI for protecting the environment through planting trees, and promised to support the UWWI team with degrade Forest reserves in the area and also provide them with tree seedlings to plant in our local forest reserves.
While addressing the community, Comfort Hajira mukasa director – uwwi. uganda women water initiative highlighted on the challenges they face and said;
“One of the challenges we have realized is that when training opportunities come to districts, unfortunately for the local women, it’s the people that can speak English that access such training opportunities and it’s also by design that they target the service providers who eventually are supposed to reach out to these women but not every woman will be reached because by designs still women fall to the practice of our implementation designs.
We are driven by our passion to see women thrive in the face of climate change and our beliefs in UBUNTU, we believe that without the women, they can never be anything so when the women thrive the earth thrives. When you train a man you train an individual but when you train a woman you train a nation. Our thematic areas are water, sanitation and hygiene, environmental conservation, bio intensive farming and women economic empowerment and leadership.
So the honest fact is that we chose Gomba because of my past works experience in Gomba I was in Gomba for eight years. My first encounter was in Maddu, if you were in Maddu the time I was in Maddu 2006, 2005, you would feel the actual impact of a drought, I saw women suffer and I saw men give up on their wives when a man was told to choose between paying for a hired car to take their wives to Gombe for a referral, they chose the cow over the woman because they valued their cows more than the women” comfort said.
