KIGALI, Rwanda, Jul 10 2018 (IPS) – To many of us, ‘keep out of the reach of children’ is a phrase we see printed on labels for medicines and chemicals.
Three years later, the village is transformed now that its 6,000 people have access to clean water close to their homes.
Those two boreholes give a combined yield of 3.4 litres per second, which is enough for such a small village.
Mukakibibi could not be happier; instead of walking for an hour-and-a-half to get dirty water from the lake, she now needs only a few minutes to fetch clean water to cook, drink, or wash with.
The Nzangwa Health Centre in the village has also undergone a transformation; the head of the centre, Ndamyuwera Edison, told me he had not heard of any child who died of waterborne diseases over two years, since the villagers have access to clean water.
Ndamyuwera explained that before the health centre had a clean water supply, the janitors were so busy fetching water that none of the delivery rooms were cleaned in between births, at great risk of mothers and their babies.
Instead, he was constantly transporting water in jerry cans on his run-down bike.
World leaders have come together at the United Nations headquarters in New York for the High Level Political Forum (HLPF), 9 July-18 July, to review the progress that has been made on Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6) – to provide clean water and sanitation to everyone, everywhere.
On current progress, Rwanda is on course to have universal access to clean water by 2082 and to give everyone access to a decent toilet by 2047.
To achieve the transformation that Mukakibibi’s village has gone through all around Rwanda, efforts on health and nutrition need to be integrated with action on water and sanitation.