Clean Water at Nashibiso School

Nashibiso Primary School, located on the eastern side of Mbale City in Wanale (foothills of Mt. Elgon), was the beneficiary of a borehole, funded by the Jewel Foundation and implemented by MAPLE Microdevelopment in 2018. As of February 2019, the school had 1250 children (680 girls and 580 boys) with 19 teachers. Eight of the teachers live on the campus with their families. Participant observation and semi-structured interviews with the head master (principle), Michael Wekwanya Wangwe, and nearby community members highlighted the impact the new borehole was having.
Nashibiso Primary School is located near the edge of the Mbale district and attracts students from the villages along Mt. Elgon. This demographic is significantly poorer than that of schools in the city center, which means that overdue school fees are a common occurrence. The area is also home to many orphans, which are culturally taken in by close relatives (e.g. aunts and uncles), who struggle to pay the fees for all their dependents (some families send up to 15 kids to the school). The head master is forgiving for these financial concerns and never sends students home on the basis of pending fees, however, he acknowledges that finances are a significant issue for him and his staff.

Before the borehole was installed, the school used taps operated by Mbale's National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC), which were costing the school 200k-300k Ugandan shillings (54 - 82 USD) per month. This amount represented a significant portion of their monthly budget and there were occasional months were they could not afford the bill and the water would be shut off.

Now that the borehole has been installed, students have increased access to clean groundwater. The borehole is centrally located and students are free to draw water whenever they please. The head master noted that the addition of the borehole had drastically increased the quality of their sanitation facilities as well, since they could be more regularly cleaned and students had access to water for washing hands.

In Uganda, access to boreholes are seeing as "free" services. Thus, the school opens their gates in the early mornings and evenings for nearby community members to enter and fetch water. "We could never charge for [the borehole], that's just not how things go in Uganda," he told MAPLE staff while chuckling - and he's right.

MAPLE continues to work closely with Nashibiso Primary School to understand the impact a donated borehole can have. While there are many positive outcomes (improved sanitation, access to clean drinking water, and reduced costs), we must consider the impact this project could have if it were to be scaled to other nearby schools. For example, the level of the water tables may be at risk and the NWSC may disagree with additional construction of boreholes within their districts. These are very important and careful considerations that MAPLE staff is currently working to assess as we evaluate our next steps.