Knowledge dissemination at community level in Kampala

Every first Sunday of the month, Kawaala zone holds community meetings in which various topics are discussed. The meetings are facilitated by mr. Wilberforce Sserwaniko, the local chairman, and his committee and are well attended. The T-GroUP team took advantage of this already existing communication vehicle and asked for a dedicated meeting to share our findings with the community. In December 2017 this meeting took place at St. Andrew Kaggwa, Gombe High School in Kawaala zone and was attended by over 150 people including various local leaders, councilors, and security leaders.  In order to convey our message, Robinah, our local T-GroUP leader, had prepared, together with the team, a presentation in which all our results are explained in a fairly simple and straightforward way. Responses of the community were manifold. Besides the fact the community was enthusiastic to listen to the research findings, the most important responses included the notion that water is considered to be a free and God-given resource. In contrast, about 40% of the community uses the groundwater fed springs and they do pay for this water. Besides spring water, piped water is generally accessible for all, while most if not all boreholes in the Kawaala area are not functioning any more due to poor management and substandard spare parts. We use these knowledge dissemination meetings not only to get across our messages, but also to identify frontrunners in the community, who can finally be part of the Learning Alliance.