Kikajjo is a rural and remote village in Kayunga district Uganda. The village has a population of approximately 2000 people in 200 households.
The majority of the people in the village are casual workers in a sugarcane plantation that belongs to a local sugar industry. They also engage in subsistence farming, growing mainly pineapples, maize, and sweet potatoes.
Access to clean and safe water is a challenge for this community since safe water sources are very far; the nearest being 4km away. There is no protected water source. All the people collect water from surface ponds which are far from homes and very polluted with chemicals that are applied into the sugarcane plantation as fertilizer.
With 1 school in the village, children are always moving into the swamps to collect water that is needed at school and in their homes. Many children, especially girls, have dropped out of school because of the hectic labor associated to collection of water.
These children had all missed school on this day and here, they are walking home with containers of water, and the journey will take them atleast an hour. They have to walk this distance at least 3 times every day.
Joy is 8-yrs-old and the only child of her parents. She is in Primary 2 at Kikajjo Primary School, however she is always absent from school because she has to provide water for her family. Every morning, afternoon and evening, she has to move with a group of other children to a spring 3 kms away from her home. it is a scary journey for her alone through the sugarcane plantation, so she would rather miss school and go to the spring with other children