Submitted by the Rotary Club of Meaford
“Meaford? Never heard of it.” If you live in this part of the world, you may have heard that reaction to the name of our town. But the people of Ukerewe, Tanzania, know us because the Rotary Club of Meaford is helping to bring them clean water.
Ukerewe Island (Kisiwa cha Ukerewe, in Swahili) is a freshwater island located in Lake Victoria. With an area of 530 square km (200 square miles), it is the largest island in Lake Victoria, the largest lake island in Africa, and the fifth largest island lake in the world. About a fifth the size of Manitoulin Island, it has a population of 450,000. Residents of the island are poor, with most existing on incomes of less than $250 per month.
Women and girls on the island typically spend 3-6 hours a day collecting water from distant and polluted sources. The time it takes to walk the average 3.7 miles for clean water is time not spent generating income, caring for family members, or attending school. According to the World Health Organization, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from diseases associated with lack of access to clean water. The people of Ukerewe face this problem. Most wells on Ukerewe consist of a muddy hole covered with rough planks. The improved wells being constructed are lined with concrete and topped with a hand pump. Since 2019 the Rotary Club of Meaford has constructed eleven wells on Ukerewe.
The project is led by Dave and Sonja Glass, both past presidents of Meaford Rotary.
“The idea of working on clean water on Ukerewe came to us as we were returning from volunteer medical work in Tanzania eight years ago,” according to Dave. “We had made several trips to Ukerewe and came to realize that many of the medical issues that we were treating were related to poor water quality. We decided we needed to work further ‘upstream’. The question was how to build the wells while ensuring that the projects were sustainable and would not interfere with local governmental projects. A plan was developed based upon well projects completed by a couple from Manitoba who had taught English on the island for several years. They shared with us their experiences and a program was built from there. The Rotary Club of Meaford partners with CACHA (Canada Africa Community Health Alliance), a Canadian charity whose mandate is to provide medical aid to rural African communities. Several individuals in Meaford have also provided financial support, for which we thank them.”
Representatives of villages that have had a well installed over the past five years were asked to describe the benefits and challenges they had experienced. They said that the incidence of water-related illness was greatly reduced, girls who normally spend a lot of time fetching water were now able to attend school because the well is in the community, and girls were much safer as they were not subject to assault when they walked long distances for water. One of the terms of the contract signed with the villages is that they collect small amounts of money from the users to put aside for maintenance. This provides long term sustainability for the wells.
In Meaford, we consider clean water to be a basic human right. It is good to know that our little town on the bay is helping to make this true for people halfway around the world.
For more on Meaford Rotary’s well project or if you would like to help with a financial donation please visit https://cacha.ca/projects/ukerewe-island-water-well-project/.
