Water Day Dialogue 

Refugee dialogue for accessibility to safe water during world water week which was organized by the YAREN organization with all the layers of refugees living in the Nakivale Refugee settlement on March 24, 2023.
Venue: Western Region, Isingiro District, Bukanga Parish, Nakivale refugee Settlement (Camp ), New Hope Village at DHL event hall, Uganda

YAREN
Date of issue: 16 to 24th March 2023
Report Date: 28 March 2023
Prepared by YAREN Organisation LTD registered as No: 80034185858204 and the P.O Box No: 980170, Kajjansi-Kampala-Uganda,

The objective of the mission:

The overall goal of the Refugee Dialogue at the World Water Day celebration was to provide a collaborative, open, and inclusive space in order to leverage and foster meaningful participation of refugees in policy deliberations on achieving durable solutions to accessing clean water.

THE SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES OF THE REFUGEE DIALOGUE ARE TO:

1. Increase the understanding of normative and institutional frameworks at all levels related to refugees accessing safe water;
2. Aggregate perspectives and experiences about refugees accessing safe water in Nakivale;
3. Create a collaborative space for intercommunity reflections on trends, challenges, and prospects related to access to safe water;
4. Provide a free space for refugees to share their experiences and lessons learned as well as consumers as significant stakeholders in the achievement of durable solutions to safe water;
5. Curate practical strategies and policy recommendations on enhancing meaningful refugee engagement in WASH and assistance policy and programmatic initiatives towards durable solutions.
6. Learn how to communicate refugees’ water problems without complaining about problems through the arts, education, and news/reports;
7. Understand the future perspectives of water by sustaining the water source in the Nakivale refugee settlement
8. Intergenerational communication is about water as a business, entrepreneurship, and the integration of community perspectives in business.
   9. Accelerating actions by formulating durable solutions to engage recommendations to the policymakers)

Participants: 95, Men: 51 women: 44, plus 25 participants online to the event live stream on Zoom, Facebook, and Instagram with the support of LO*OP Center/ Open Portal Network.

Categories of participants were refugees and nationals including women and men living in the district of Isingiro and host communities; people who own the local wells, schools, CBOs, and clinics beneficiaries' water filters we distributed in 2021; water user committee representatives; WASH implementing partners; Representatives from the Government; District Water officer; Refugee local leaders; and Refugee led-organizations working on WASH.

The event's panelists or influencers included:

Mr. Niwamanya Boaz - Eng. the representative from Isingiro District in the Office of Water and Environment. He addressed the possibility of refugees accessing National Water, an alternative that will come through the River Kagera, a project Funded by the government of France and the government of Uganda with UNHCR Uganda.

Mr. Jean Baptiste from Nsamizi Humanitarian Project (UNHCR/OPM) Nakivale Refugee Settlement's Water implementing partner, addressed the issue of challenges of accessibility to enough water and also talked about water production, distribution of water, and hygiene and sanitation. He said water is still not enough and should be well managed to avoid contamination.

Mr. Amoga Benard, from Medical Teams International (MTI), addressed the issue of Life Rescue related to the environmental ecosystem for refugees to live a healthy life.

Mr. Frank Bazira, the RWC III delegate, addressed refugees' role in sustaining the water source and solutions to the current situation.

Mr. Aristarque Ashige, Chairperson of the Association of CBOs in Nakivale, addressed the role of the refugee-led organization working on water in Nakivale.

The Assistant Nakivale Refugee Settlement O.C police Uganda Kashojwa Station's delegate addressed the issue of solutions towards protection against local hand-dug wells and problems due to water in Nakivale.

• Highlights / main findings:
  Introduction.
• Pre-activities for one week
  Our pre-event activities were much based on the local hand-dug well owners' engagement within the community. We were able to attend 28 local hand-dug wells including five at Kashojwa zone, five at New Congo, fifteen at New Hope, and four at New Kigali.
  We are focused on promoting WASH by doing mobilization on personal hygiene, safe water chains, and Model homes, by considering the Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices (KAP) Survey on water, sanitation, and hygiene according to WHO and UNHCR Models.
  
• Personal hygiene:

Teaching the community about the five critical moments and about much more in the schools.

1. After toilet
2. Before eating
3. Serving food
4. Breastfeeding the baby
5. Disposing of babies' feces
6. Safe Water Chain:

A safe water chain includes all processes to ensure that water is not contaminated through all stages from the water source to consumption. Critical stages in the safe water chain include water collection, handling, transportation, storage and treatment, and consumption.

Types of Latrines:

1. Standard latrine
2. Open defecation
3. Cloud latrine
4. Local latrine
5. World Water Day was organized by the YAREN organization under the theme: Water and Environment Climate Resilient Development. The sub-theme was Refugee Dialogue For Accessibility to Safe Water.
   The event started on 16th to 24th March 2023. From 16 to 19 March, we had stakeholders engagement; from 20 to 21st March the community with wells engagement; on 22nd March 2023, we celebrated World Water Day organized by UNHCR at Rubondo as WASH partner in Nakivale refugee settlement. March 23rd was a setup day for the dialogue on 24th March 2023.

On 24th March was the final dialogue. Participants formed four groups, each of which reflected on the accessibility of water for each refugee household. After putting their findings on the flipchart, they had the opportunity to present their findings, opinions, and considerations on the accessibility of water.

The constants of water problems by the participants

Each group has certified the availability of water in Nakivale. Unanimously the four groups have demonstrated that there is a serious problem with access to water due to:

1. The insufficient number of water taps concerning people and/or families.
2. Insufficient amount of water available. One can per household after long hours of long distance under the sun.
3. We observe days without water for two to three days and even a week without any drop in the faucets.
4. Sometimes the water is unfit for consumption, not meeting all the components of good water quality.

The groups of participants also gave the harmful consequences of inaccessibility to water and the supply of water unfit for consumption:

1. In search of water in the evening or very early in the morning, women and young girls are raped by uncivil people.
2. To have easy access to water, some women and/or young girls are forced to offer themselves sexually to some standpipe or Water user committee managers. This point doesn't have concrete evidence therefore, this was mentioned in the group discussions which was not in the general event with stakeholders Dialogue, we are looking to do a follow up with stakeholders for the feedback.
3. The problem of undesirable pregnancies which tear apart the homes of refugees and the multiplication of single mothers.
4. The group of wells managers also spoke about the unsafe water they produce from their home wells. They deplored the absence of chlorine and other products that can disinfect the water in their wells.

The wells are not well constructed because the walls are not protected. Landslides are happening all the time and we have to rebuild.

Participants' Questions

After the interventions of the panelists present at the dialogue, the participants successively asked several questions to the representative of the NGO NSAMIZI, the UNHCR/OPM Implementing partner in charge of water.

Why are there not enough standpipes or water taps, why the water is not regular at the taps, and why sometimes the water is dirty (colors, odors, and debris)? Why even present at the taps, not all households are served? Some households lack water.

To this series of questions, the representative of NSAMIZI replied that there are always new refugees arriving every day and it is impossible to plan for the emergency. Hence the number of refugees is greater than the capacity of the available water. This answer did not completely convince the participants.

The representative of Isingiro District said that on the sidelines of the solution, the Ugandan Government through the fund from the Government of France with the support of donors and the UNHCR is already planning to bring the water collected from the KAGERA river to distribute it in the refugee camps, a solution which does not seem to respond to the current situation but which would seem to be a durable solution.

The district agreed to support our organization and promised to invite us to the water and WASH program to present our work, and always be in touch.
Additional comments regarding water quality
Often children sent to draw water take the opportunity to bathe in this water unfit for consumption. Of its color and its smell in a certain place of this lake, the refugees were quick to nickname this water BIDAMU in Swahili, which means in French: a lot of coagulated blood on earth.
Water can be so polluted that users exhibit several typhoid fever symptoms. Then refugees accuse each other of witchcraft and poisoning. Friends and neighboring families tear each other apart and no one thinks of the invisible enemy in the water they consume. It is in the hospital after examination or test that the refugees discover that they are suffering from typhoid fever.
Intestinal gasses and protozoan remain also play a role in the suffering of people in rural communities in Uganda. These are some of the reasons why when you arrive in rural communities the first impression you see is the very puny people and the children with pale faces.

The opinions and considerations of the participants

Actions Taken or Recommendations:
Problems Identified During the Dialogue

Recommended solutions

Person / Unit responsible for taking action

Problems of water pollution

Sensitizing the community about the importance of water (clean water);

1. Banning the people who wash their vehicles and domestic clothes near the water sources
2. Use of chemicals like chlorine;
3. Measures and punishments for water source pollution

OPM, Police, Community, and Nsamizi with local Government, policymakers

Lack of materials to generate enough water

1. Requesting plastic tanks
2. Construction of tanks from sand and cement

Governments, donors, NGOs, and Implementing Organisations

Lack of enough water
For Local hand dug
Wells’ water treatment
Good sanitation as standard latrines
Lack of tanks to generate rainwater
Inadequate sanitation

1. Provision of enough water points in schools and communities at large
2. Avoiding misuse of water, especially by children at school
3. Store water in plastic tanks, and create a new system in the absence of water tanks to use Airborne rainwater with solar systems.
4. Consideration of YAREN for boreholes powered by a solar system with filtration.
5. Innovation of wells by building biodigesters through small contributions to sustain this project.
6. Tablets for water treatment at water points
7. Slabs making to promote sanitation.
8. Solicitation of plastic tanks for rainwater in schools
9. Looking for public places, schools, and churches quick impact on Wash

Community and implementing partners, NGOs, YAREN and Donors

This event was organized by YAREN with additional support from The MBA Academy, Anti-Nucleur WaterWaste Discharge, and LO-OP Center in collaboration with Living in Christ Omega (LICOM), ACBON, Maria Foundation, and Learning Assistance Centre.

• Conclusion:

The dialogue was an ad hoc solution to the water communication problem for the refugees in Nakivale Uganda. The majority of deaths in Nakivale as a refugee camp/settlement in Uganda are due to the waterborne infections hepatitis, dysentery, cholera, and bacteria including typhoid fever that victims incorrectly attribute to poisoning by friends, neighbors, and witches.

The enthusiasm and joy mixed with a hope for better accessibility were read on the faces of the participants during the dialogue after the responses were given concerning the water from River Kagera; still, this isn’t much of a solution to the current situation. Accessibility to water treatment for local hand-dug wells is an answer to a true community problem, as is using tanks.

YAREN Organisation, which is an organization advocating for and enabling risky communities, brought on the table different stakeholders to discuss water problems. We request special attention to a large-scale project that could be launched in favor of refugees and host communities to save their lives threatened by water-borne diseases that have become endemic in Nakivale Uganda.

Thanks to all the participants in this dialogue.

Images of the execution of the activity    

Our video report part 1 ​​ WORLD WATER DAY REFUGEE DIALOGUE ON 24TH March 2023 Part 1, groups discussions

Here is the link to our part 2 video of the dialogue World Water Day Refugee Dialogue in Nakivale Refugee Settlement Uganda, Part2

To learn something about YAREN click here: About YAREN ORGANISATION.docx 

Our Facebook Page YAREN Organization - Home | Facebook
Here are some highlights images of this dialogue on access to drinking water in the refugee camps in Nakivale.

Family picture after the event

Presentation of findings, opinions, and consideration of groups of women heads of households

Group presentation by local leaders on access to drinking water.
Local hand-dug well and water sellers group presentation Responsible for household water wells

Refugee WASH representative organizations

Intervention of NSAMIZI-UNHCR/OPM water implementing partner represented by Mr. Jean Baptiste (JOHN)

 Intervention from Medical Teams International' representative Mr. AMOGA BENARD

From Isingiro District in the office of Water and Environment Mr. Niwamanya Boaz
Photo of dialogue' Panelists from left to right representative of MTI, ACBON's Chairperson, Assistant OC, RWC III's representative, NSAMIZI's delegate

Intervention of the Settlement Assistant O.C Police

Nakivale Refugee Settlement RWC III's representative Mr. Frank BAZIRA's intervention
ACBON's Chairperson Mr. Aristarque ASHIGE intervention
Group of Local Leaders No:1 Sharing about challenges and possible solutions

Group N°2 sharing about women on Possibility to access clean water in Nakivale
Group of Schools and clinics N°3 Discussing challenges that schools and clinics face to access safe water in Nakivale refugee settlement and suggesting some solutions.

Participant group of Wells owners and water sellers N°4. Brainstorming on clean water accessibility

Thanks Remarks from Mr muganuzi Mushongole Adonis the Founder and Executive Director of YAREN Organisation
Some Panalist's Photo with the Isingiro District delegate Mr. NIWAMANYA BOAZ in a white shirt.

Participants during the dialogue asked questions to panelists related to the challenges of accessing water in the Nakivale Refugee Settlement

Restoration of participants at the refugee dialogue for accessibility to clean or safe water the in Nakivale refugee settlement.

Participants at the dialogue receiving their transport refund

Pre-activities

End of World Water Day Dialogue report in Nakivale