BREAKING DOWN TABOOS: YOUNG, FEMALE AND HEADING A SANITATION MASONRY BUSINESS IN UGANDA

In the Ugandan rural context, becoming a mason is an unlikely career choice for a woman, and certainly not the easiest

Tweheyo Naume is only 23, but she has already constructed more than 80 safe sanitation systems and toilets and trained more than 40 other women in her community in the Rwenzori region, western Uganda.

Naume’s vocation started at an early age, helping her uncle, who is also a mason. “I would do jobs for him like fetching water and mixing the sand, and at the end of the day he would pay me. This kept motivating me as time went by. Then the FINISH Mondial programme came in. They first trained my uncle, and I later joined as well,” explains Naume.

The FINISH Mondial (programme under which Naume and her uncle trained, is implemented in Uganda by the NGOs Caritas Fort Portal-HEWASA and Amref Health Africa and funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The programme works towards the SDG 6 target of safe sanitation for all by 2030. Among other things, FINISH Mondial trains masons in setting up their own small sanitation construction business, enabling them well-being,” said Stoler. “Water insecurity can ruin people’s lives in lots of ways. But water-quality data still drives the narrative of what safe water means without considering other elements like mental health, gender disparities, and injuries that can occur when retrieving water.” to create a livelihood for themselves, while at the same time developing much needed sanitation services.

Even when water is safe to drink, millions of people face harassment, assault, anxiety, depression, or work, school, or family care absenteeism when retrieving or consuming household water, according to the study.

Pamela Kabasinguzi heads the programme in Uganda and is proud of its achievements so far: “We have constructed close to 50,000 safely managed sanitation facilities across the four districts using climate-friendly technologies. And we have improved agricultural productivity by making nitrogen-rich compost from faecal sludge and trained some 737 youth sanitation entrepreneurs.”

How do you think communication in the water sector has evolved in recent years?

We can talk about the developments in technology that have really changed how we communicate about water, from social media, VR, and AI to real-time data.

But for me, the most significant evolution is that water researchers are starting to get interested in communications. It’s not happening fast enough, but certainly, we are seeing researchers getting more active on social media channels for example, promoting their research, contributing to conversations and being more engaged in knowledge sharing across different platforms. This is a big leap forward; water communication needs the support of researchers who can champion the science we are talking about and can address misinformation around this sector.

Why do you think it is important to communicate about water?

It’s simple, there is no substitute for water. It’s no longer just raising awareness about water, now it’s about catalysing action and doing things differently in how we think about water and manage it. So effectively communicating about the challenges related to water but also about the evidence-based solutions, such as what my organization IWMI develops through its research, can really provide that impetus for action by policymakers, communities, donors, young people, the private sector and the international community.

There are many untold or unheard stories related to water, innovations, indigenous knowledge, community science and advocacy; and speaking from my own line of work, untold stories related in particular to water-related research. There are also more voices that need to be heard in the telling of the water story, so communication can be the vehicle for all of this.

What are the most challenging aspects of communicating water-related research?

We need to be able to tell a powerful story with our research, but the main challenge is the complexity of that research. Scientific jargon, models, data and technical concepts can be quite difficult to translate into engaging messages for different audiences.

We’ve mentioned water being a resource that cuts across sectors and disciplines, and that in itself is another challenge. It’s probably a little easier to just focus communications on one sector at a time, like WASH for example, but that approach further underpins the siloed nature of water communications. At IWMI, our researchers work to address these knowledge gaps across the various disciplines, which really helps us in our communications to see that “big picture” and talk about it.

To this point, I do believe that scientists and researchers in the water sector are seeing the value of integrating com- munication into their research from the beginning. This is certainly true of IWMI. They are acknowledging more and more that communications should not be an afterthought or considered just at the tail end of their research project. And this is how communicators and researchers together can address the challenges of translating complex science into communications that are both accurate and impactful. A collaborative space for research and communications provides opportunities to learn from one another. Water research organizations really must invest in increasing their communications capacity.

What would you tell new aspiring water communicators? I would say don’t be afraid to start in this field – take the plunge! (pun intended). It is really an opportunity to make an impact, to talk about the important issues. We need more communicators to work in the water sector and be water champions.

BY: SWM TEAM

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