From Challenge to Impact: How St. John Yerya Primary School Overcame WASH Funding Shortages

At St. John Yerya Primary School, we faced a unique challenge in maintaining our WASH facilities. As a school, we simply couldn’t afford to finance the upkeep of these important resources on our own. However, thanks to the efforts of our dedicated alumni group, we were able to overcome this obstacle and ensure that our pupils and teachers had access to clean water and hygienic sanitation facilities noted Ms Beatrice –The Head teacher of the school.

When the school was first equipped with a water tank and eco-san latrines, there were insufficient funds available to finance their maintenance. Recounts Mr. Vincent Twinabo, an alumnus of St. John Yerya Primary School. “We set up a social group comprising of more than 160 Alumni members, with some living life in the diaspora, and through this group, St John Yerya primary school hierarchy is asked to always alert the group through the Alumni elected group leaders of any financial challenge facing the school or a WASH facility at the school that would be in need of some financial input regarding maintenance or implementation so that we can brainstorm, pool funds and see how to eliminate the problem with some cash contributions from group members”.

Thanks to the hard work of our alumni group and the support of our local leaders and parents, we were able to fundraise and generate the necessary funds to maintain our WASH facilities. As a result, our pupils have seen a significant improvement in their school attendance and grades, and our community as a whole has benefited from improved hygiene.

As Mr. Moses Rugumba, a program officer  of at CARITAS HEWASA , noted, “At one PTA meeting, parents agreed to contribute up to UGX 3,000 per pupil on a termly basis toward the maintenance cost of WASH facilities at their children’s schools as they had seen some of the positives in this like increased numbers in school attendance that led to good grades by their children in the long run, and also improved hygiene at school, a phenomenal that extended to their homes in the process, to mention but a few.” We are so grateful for the support of our alumni group and the wider community in making this possible.