Story - Anthony, The People’s Mason

Writer- Melissa Kyeyune | NGO- Water For People | Country- Uganda | SDG- Goal 6, Clean Water and Sanitation | Year- 2017 |

SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation | Anthony Olupot has fixed hundreds of latrines over the years, but when asked how many households in Soroti district he has transformed, he replies, “The last three.”

This is because in the last three homes that Anthony has worked on, he applied all the knowledge he had acquired from a recent training by Water For People.

“Water For People came and taught us how to build improved and safe latrines.”

Under the ‘Sanitation As A Business’ approach, Water For People identifies community engineers and masons such as Anthony to provide sanitation services to households, while also creating demand for these services.

Water For People aims to cost-effectively move people up the sanitation ladder using a sanitation as a business industry facilitation approach. The results will be to assist rural households to improve sanitation facilities from basic conditions to those that meet JMP standards of an improved latrine.
Anthony, his wife and their five children have also benefitted from the masonry skills passed on by Water For People. He recently built the family a new latrine.

“I built us a new latrine with a strong cement slab, smeared walls and a satopan that prevents flies and bad smells. Our old latrine used to be very dirty.”

For their home latrine, Anthony needed to buy different building materials such as ring liners, concrete slabs and Sato pans, all to be obtained from the community stockist SANQUA Engineering. It would not be the cheapest venture, especially for a rural household. However, there was a solution.

"Water For People staff came with a loan officer to sensitize our savings group about taking out a WASH loan from Post Bank. We learnt of the loan’s low interest rates which were even lower than those of our group."

Anthony, with a recommendation from his savings group managed to take out a WASH loan of UGX500,000 (approx. $130) with the condition that all the money goes towards building his new latrine. He received the money in instalments, and now has a latrine that is safe, clean and odourless.

“My family’s health has improved.”

Anthony is now working towards paying back the loan and hopes that more people can follow his example. He is aware however, of the reasons for people’s hesitation in taking out loans.

“The rains have not been very good this year and so people have not harvested. People are using the little money they have on food, not latrines.”

He knows however, that people have the interest.

“People come up to me all the time asking how they can also get a new latrine. I have to explain that there is a process and it is not free. It is doable however.”

He believes that next year when the rains return, and people can sell their produce, his phone will be ringing off the hook.

“The interest is there,” he insists. “People want clean and smell-free latrines.”

Organization website: https://www.waterforpeople.org/where-we-work/uganda