Slum community in Kasokoso

With every step I took, the stench from the ground of rotten food and rubbish I was walking on got worse, but it didn’t compare to what was happening in front of me.

A group of children, one after the other, pushed their dirty jerry cans deep into the brown murky pond water that lapped against the surrounding waste.

Towering above them, a crumbling latrine. There was little doubt that its contents was further contaminating the water below.

These children will take this water home for it to be used for washing, cooking…even drinking.

“The community have advised no one collects water from here, but for many it’s their closest source,” my translator tells me. “The children don’t know any better, they will get water wherever their parents tell them.”

Heart breaking.

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This scene was one of so many I saw during my time in the slum communities of Uganda’s capital city, Kampala. The illnesses contracted by dirty water are debilitating to families.

They can even be deadly.

Diarrhoea caused by dirty water and poor toilets kills a child under 5, every 2 minutes.

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The BioSand Water Filter

There’s a solution, supplied by Samaritan’s Purse to communities like this, which is actually incredibly simple, effective, long lasting and cheap.

A Bio-Sand water Filter, a 4 ft high, concrete structure in a household kills 99% of bacteria in the dirty water poured into it to produce at the end of a filtration process, clean water. A filter like this gives these communities something that everyone has a right to – Water that is safe to drink.

Together we can provide 600 homes in the slums of Kampala with a BioSand Water Filter, which can give these families the precious gift of safe, clean water for decades.