Spotlight on the Sabasengo Community, Rwanda:
In recent years, the Sabasengo community in eastern Rwanda had a significant population boom. The rural community is now home to over 2,000 residents, most of whom relied on a nearby dam for all of their water needs. As an agrarian community, the residents used the dam to provide water not only for their families, but also for their livestock. Sharing the water with the animals contaminated it with dangerous bacteria that led to waterborne sicknesses. Sometimes residents avoided the dam by collecting water from irrigation channels, but this source presented a different danger—pesticides that washed in from nearby fields. Residents felt like no matter where they turned, their water was making them sick. (Read more…)