The Action for Development (AFORD) Capacity Development Facilitator, Josephine Lemoyan (L) conducting a TOT training to District Facilitating Team in Rujewa Mbarali District, Mbeya.
MBARALI: World Wide Fund for nature (WWF) through its Ruaha Water Program (RWP) has started implementing gender mainstreaming into water resource management (IWRM) in order to bring about equity among the water users, hence reduction of water conflicts.
Gender mainstreaming is a strategy for making the concerns and experiences of women as well as of men an integral part of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programs in all political, economic and societal spheres, so that women and men benefit equally, and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal of mainstreaming is to achieve gender equality and equity."
The Action for Development (AFORD) a nongovernmental organization based in Mwanza in collaboration with WWF has conducted training on Gender Mainstreaming and Capacity building through Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) to WWF-RWP staff, District Facilitating Team from Makete and Mufindi and other multi stakeholders held in Rujewa in Mbarali District, Mbeya Region recently.
The AFORD Capacity Development Facilitator, Josephine Lemoyan and Joseph Banza conducted the training of trainers (TOT) to the multi stakeholders on promoting participatory and gender focused interventions in IWRM.
Yahaya Omary a Monitoring and Evaluation Officer and Martha Sanga Assistant Development Officer both from WWF-RWP co-organized the training.
In these training participants learnt a lot of things but the main emphasis on was gender mainstreaming in the management of water resource management.
It was learnt that through gender mainstreaming women and men should both involved in decision making in water resource management and they to reach a common vision together.
Lack of gender participatory in decision making in water resource management and not having a common shared vision is one of causes of misunderstanding in the community.
Gender mainstreaming is a better way of doing things which needs the use simple tools will shape up community perception.
In another development, Songwe-Imalilo Primary School of Mbarali District in Mbeya Region is facing an acute shortage of water and teachers, it was discovered.
The school which is situated at Imalilo-Songwe Village, Imalilo-Songwe Ward in Mbarali District has never had water supply since the school was started in 1976.
According to the school headmaster Clemency Paulo, the school is facing the problem of water for a long time now and scholars and teachers are using water from the ponds which is a few metres away from the school premises.
Paulo said that pupils were failing to keep sanitation clean due lack of reliable water supply at the school.
He is the fifth headmaster since the school started in 1976 and holding his position as the head of school since 2000.
And other headmasters who ruled the school with their years in brackets including A. Simba (1976-1983), S. Mliendele (1983-1985), P. Chahe (1985-1988) and A. Mbuya (1988-2000), according to Village Executive Officer (VEO) Henry Katuli in collaboration with headmaster C. Paulo.
The school children were use to collect tail ender waters which is contaminated with farm chemicals from the irrigation channel of Mbarali Rice Estates which is supposed go back to the Great Ruaha River for other purposes like power hydro generation.
The school uses other alternative means of getting water from shallow water wells dug near the water furrows which also the animals find their way to drink water.
The school also face the problem of lack enough teachers and pit latrines and the total number 630 pupils, that is, 315 boys and 315 girls.
The headmaster said the school need 20 teachers but there are only ten and they need 28 pit latrines but only eight is present and shortage of 12 pit latrines compared the number pupils.
“The sanitation at school is very poor because there is no water and enough toilets you expect a lot of children suffering from sanitation related diseases,” he said.
The school received capitation of 197,137.41 last year. Mbarali District has a total of 102 primary schools.
Furthermore, Imalilo-Songwe Dispensary is in need of more health workers.
The dispensary is currently is having only two nurses including a midwife nurse.
According the ministry of health regulations, the dispensary is supposed to have at least five health personnel.
Gloria Shughuru who is a midwife nurse at the dispensary said they need more workers so that they work so effectively because at the moment workload is too big for them.
She said the village has a lot of people and they have to receive the medical attention at the same dispensary.
The dispensary also no any water supply in place but it rely on sold water from water vendors who sell a 20litre container of water at 500/- although the water is contaminated.
She said once they buy water from the village water vendors, the water is treated using Water Guard tablets to make it fit for human consumption.
She pointed out that due to lack of water in village a lot people suffer from Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) and skin diseases especially children.
“The cases of UTI, Diarrhea and skin infections are common here at dispensary because these diseases are sanitation related,” she said.
She said that apart from UTI, Diarrhea and skin infection, there are also diseases that people suffer from like malaria, Pneumonia, hook worms, respiratory infection, Gastritis, dysentery, Sexual Transmitted Diseases (STDs) and eye infections.
“We treated a total of 2,008 patients last year diagnosed with different types of diseases,” she said.
She added that all referrals were taken Rujewa District Hospital and other private hospitals available in the Mbarali District.
According to the VEO, Henry Katuli, the village has total residents of 2,773 including 1,352 male and 1,421female with an area of 4479.337 hectares.
The village is bordered with Ibumila Village in the north, Warumba Village in the south, Ubaruku Village in the east and Ukwavila in the west.
The village has no any village land use plan (VLUP) and natural mineral resource management committees in place hence land conflicts due rice irrigation farming.
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