Clean drinking water in Uganda - the story of Imat Adonga Keren

Our carbon offset project in Uganda saves carbon emissions through access to clean drinking water. As part of the "Improved Kitchen Regimes" programme, existing boreholes are being rehabilitated and converted into functioning drinking water wells. This eliminates the need to boil the drinking water, and the families avoid carbon emissions.

Imat Adonga Keren lives in northern Uganda in the Otuke District. She is the mother of nine children and remembers the situation well back: "We fetched our water from an open well about 1 km away. In this well we also washed our clothes, our children used it for bathing and animals also drank from it. We used the same water at home and had constant diarrhoea and other illnesses."

The situation at the original well shows the difficulties the inhabitants had to struggle with. But it also shows the inexperience in hygiene. Since the borehole in Barilec was repaired in 2014, the population of the village has access to safe water. The borehole is deep enough to pump groundwater and also covered so that no dirt can get into the water.

Further hygiene precautions have been taken: There are no toilets around the wells. And to protect the water from animal contamination, they are fenced in. A decisive factor in keeping the wells clean for a long time is the annual information events on the subject of hygiene.

Imat is very satisfied: "We are very happy to have this well. Since then we no longer have diarrhoea. We used to spend a lot of money on medical treatment, which we now invest in the education of our children and grandchildren".