Free Flow

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From China to Uganda: educating and

empowering people to take action

Dennis Nelson, President and CEO; John Etgen, Senior Vice President;

Nicole Rosenleaf Ritter, Communications Manager, Project WET Foundation

n Entebbe, Uganda, it started with one teacher. Fed up

with the toll that waterborne diseases were taking on his

pupils and the school at large, Lake Victoria Primary School

teacher Aggrey Oluka jumped at the chance to participate in the

development of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) educa-

tion materials that could improve his students’ health.

At a workshop in Uganda’s second largest city Jinja, Oluka and

other educators worked with the Project Water Education for

Teachers (WET) Foundation to develop WASH education materi-

als to use across six African countries. While he expected to lend

his expertise to creating locally relevant materials that would

appeal to students and teachers around Africa, Oluka couldn’t

have known the impact his participation would have on his

community and the wider world. The successful implementa-

tion of the materials he helped create would ultimately lead to

safer water resources, increased water source protection and even

improvement in Lake Victoria Primary School’s bottom line. The

experiences of Oluka and Lake Victoria Primary School show

how cooperation on WASH education can lead to significant

institutional development – and demonstrate the

potential of scaling up water education.

Aggrey Oluka had seen waterborne diseases devastate

Lake Victoria Primary School. Enrolment at the 2,000-

pupil school plummeted to 400 during one cholera

epidemic, and even when cholera was not present, typhoid

and other diarrhoeal diseases were. His pupils oftenmissed

school or had to leave class to visit the school health clinic

when they felt sick. As a science teacher, he knew that

waterborne illnesses can often be prevented, but there was

no programme in place to teach children – or even train

teachers – to protect themselves.

Around the same time, the United States Agency

for International Development (USAID) had noticed a

similar lack of WASH education resources for Africa.

Formal water education was virtually non-existent

and the lack of a systematic programme meant that

preventable waterborne diseases continued to prolif-

erate unchecked. Measures that can reduce disease

transmission – hand washing, boiling water and water

ater

ducation

and

nstitutional

evelopment

Children at Lake Victoria School in Uganda play a game that teaches them how to avoid catching common waterborne diseases