Over the past two years, co2balance has worked with partners in Uganda to develop safe water based carbon projects. We have learnt several lessons and grown to our 5 fully operational projects with two projects in the pipeline. For further information on how to partner us visit the company website www.co2balance.com. The biggest partnership we… Read the full article >
Supporting self-reliance
The hallmark of projects implemented by co2balance partners in Uganda over the past two years has been a strong partnership with communities. Water as a resource requires that the communities who consume it have to get involved in management of the boreholes lest they get back to their original state of ruin. Last week, I… Read the full article >
Before and After – A Story from Kaliro
Often we get to see the stories of project success after projects have been implemented in communities. When in the field, we only spend a few minutes or hours with individuals and get to see how the projects we develop are impacting their lives. We often get to see only small details that inspire the… Read the full article >
Kaliro Projects
I have spent the better part of this month in the field in Kaliro working on our monitoring surveys and then coordinating a Validation site visit by Gold Standard and Fair trade auditors. it has been a great time meeting with the communities and personally receiving their appreciation on behalf of co2balance. On one occasion,… Read the full article >
Reducing the burden – 12 km less per day
Ruth Nanyanzi is a Form 3 student of Iganga girls Secondary School. She comes from the village of Iguliryo in Kaliro district in Eastern Uganda. Every holiday she spends a week at home in the village. Her village is not connected into the national grid and so she is restricted to daytime hours to get… Read the full article >
WASH In Kaliro
I spent the last week with co2balance partners in Kaliro starting of the WASH projects and visiting project sites. It was a good exercise as I got to ensure the partners understand our expectations and that we were not pushing them to unreasonable levels and I also got to understand the experiences they face when… Read the full article >
Darkness at noon, the sun after the rain
This week presented Uganda with the paradox of an exciting storm. Kampala was ablaze with the uproar of “Darkness at noon”. One clever blogger actually did a good work at photoshopping alien spaceships into the Kampala sky. We also experienced new flood zones with the Coty Authorities as usual getting the blame. Am glad that… Read the full article >
Discussing Water and Sanitation
I spent last week in the North of Uganda looking to setup a sustainable WASH programs in Alebtong District. We found out that in terms of community mobilization it is a very busy time. The government of Uganda is issuing new identity cards to citizens all over the country and the registration process is at… Read the full article >
LSC in Kaliro
On the 11th of July, co2balance and WAACHA, one of our local partners, net with the community in Kaliro district in a Loal Stakeholder Consultation meeting for our newest water VPA. It was one of the most vibrant meetings I have attended and led in my 4 years at co2balance. This particular LSC had lots… Read the full article >
Progress
My colleague , Eszter and I have just got off a grueling week of field visits where we covered more than 1500km on land visiting different boreholes repaired by co2balance in Alebtong, Otuke and Dokolo districts of Uganda and assessing the next ten we are to repair in our first project in the East of Uganda… Read the full article >
1000 steps ahead
It’s a new month and in Uganda it has come with a sudden rise in temperature and retreat of the rains. We are asking ourselves where the heavy rains we had last week have gone. But then again, it is too soon to tell what the weatherman will conjure up. This month comes with two… Read the full article >
Bursting the banks
This week, we completed our protocol for mobile water testing, a procedure we plan to implement in the near future. Periodically we shall be getting into the field and routinely testing water sources for all the parameters that meet with the national standards for safe water as required by the Directorate of Water Resources Management…. Read the full article >
Teamwork
There’s a common African saying, “It takes a village to bring up a child”. In co2balance our mantra has been, it takes a team to build up a project. This week has been the epitome of team work. We have been preparing documentation for four projects, getting ready for the next round of monitoring work,… Read the full article >
A sobering week
It’s been exciting this week on the Kaliro front. Kaliro as I’m sure we all remember is the site of our new project. Our partners here, an organisation that we formally and informally call WAACHA, who we previously partnered with in stove distribution and who we have developed a very good relationship with were out… Read the full article >
Context
This week, I had the honor and privilege of listening in on the Grand Citizen’s Debate, a local forum where the Ugandan society’s leaders sat down to discuss the political state of the nation and the way forward for our nation. This was through headphones and my phone’s FM radio. It was lovely listening to… Read the full article >