No surgery without water

Imagine your doctor saying this to you: “We’ll operate on you as soon as possible. First, we have to walk two hours to the river and back to fetch water—then we’ll get started.”
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Tamara Schmutz

This statement seems absurd. Yet in the past, staff at the emergency clinic in Nyakihanga, in southwestern Uganda, couldn’t even offer their patients a glass of water. The very existence of this emergency clinic is already a success story. Everyone worked together. The village church provided soil from its property to make the bricks. Everyone helped build it. They collected medical supplies from various places and institutions. The only thing missing was water nearby.

Water is life

The local council asked our partner organization, KDWSP, for guidance: “Together, we built a rainwater tank and installed water filters. Now there is water for bathing newborn babies, for drinking, and for cleaning the treatment rooms.”
Women and men stand in front of a water tank in Uganda, waving cheerfully.

The patients in Nyakihanga are grateful and happy to have this water tank. Yet many villages still lack clean water. Children and women have to walk for hours every day to fetch contaminated water from rivers and lakes. As a result, the children are on dangerous paths instead of in school.

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