Total sanitation becomes reality in Asinge

A widow in Asinge village putting up a drying rack.

Credit: WaterAid Uganda / Pade Ophori

In May 2006 the village of Asinge had no safe water source and only 17 percent of households had their own latrines. Less than a year later, the village boasts a safe water source and has become the first village in the entire north eastern region to achieve 100 percent sanitation coverage.

In early 2006, the nearest water source was a lake five kilometres away while the nearest safe source was a seven kilometre walk to a neighboring community.

Thanks to WaterAid's partner organisation WEDA, the community built itself a 64m-metre-deep bore hole and each household now has a latrine, a hand washing facility, a bath shelter, rubbish pit and a drying rack.

The successful sanitation coverage is partly due to the environment surrounding Asinge. The village is very small and the surrounding landscape is sandy with few shrubs and bushes which means there is no privacy for people to go to the toilet in the open. This made it easy for villagers to see the benefits of sanitation and keen to achieve good coverage.

The new facilities have improved living standards in Asinge with villagers seeing a reduction in water-related diseases. There have been social and economic changes too. Women are now able to engage in other productive activities like farming, brick-making and fetching water for their livestock because it takes less time to walk to the water source. Members of the community have also spoken of how there are now fewer conflicts in the home.

The villagers of Asinge have realised the value of uniting to work together as a group so that they can sustain clean water and improved sanitation. The positive impact hasn't stopped in Asinge, the success has spread to neighbouring communities. Apuuton, a nearby village, has taken up the challenge and built an extra 18 latrines. Now it has 22 latrines, up from just 4 in June 2006.

In honour of Asinge, committees involved in water and sanitation joined together to celebrate the end of sanitation week on 22 March 2007.