Rwera Kintu Village Health Project

This project aims to improve health and food security by providing access to potable water and training in health and agriculture. Key activities include creating an efficient rural water supply system that provides sufficient potable water for 15 360 beneficiaries in 14 poor rural settlements of Bugamba and Ndeija sub-counties in the Rwera-Kintu area of Mbarare District Uganda. The project installs a model of rural water supply (gravity-flow supply system - GFS) which has been used successfully throughout the southwestern region. The GFS carries fresh potable water from productive hillside springs to strategically placed tap-stands located in the settlements. In addition community development initiatives are conducted in health and sanitation youth and community sensitization on HIV/AIDS issues and prevention and environmental conservation practices. The project also convenes and trains groups of marginalized women (widows) and their children in collective decision-making towards the acquisition of land and inputs for household food production providing skills transfer in production nutrition use of fuel-efficient stoves and health and sanitation. The African Community Technical Service’s local partners are the Diocese of South Ankole the Church of Uganda Ruharo Mission Hospital Healthy Child Uganda the District Authority of Mbarara the District Authority of Ntungamo the National Water and Sewage Authority and the Ugandan Ministries of Health and the Environment.

The expected intermediate outcomes for this project include: (1) increased access of clean water and local management of water sources by local communities ; (2) improved health for 31 200 villagers located in Mbarara and Ntungamo districts in South-Western Uganda; (3) increased use of Fuel-Efficient Stoves and other environmentally-friendly agricultural best practices; (4) Improved food security for 360 land-poor widows with children by providing access to land through the creation of 30 informal agricultural cooperatives (i.e. “Mutual Benefit Societies”) as well as training in agricultural best practices and income generation activities.