This week, we learnt about the negative impact that climate change is having on poor communities around the world.

Uganda faces a significant water shortage, with many people lacking access to safe drinking water and sanitation.

Fabiano used to spend hours every day collecting water from a well. He would walk there and back, 5km overall, and it would take him an hour. Sometimes he would make this journey three times a day. It made going to school hard as he was too tired. But Fabiano loved school and he was determined to go after collecting water, even when he was tired. In fact, he never missed a day of school.

Thanks to help from CAFOD’s global network, Fabiano’s community now has a pump in the village. It means it’s much easier to collect water for cooking and cleaning. It also means that the community can grow vegetables.

Fabiano has much more free time now. He is enjoying his school and helping other people to understand how the water pump can help everyone stay clean and healthy.

As we see from Fabiano’s story, taking care of creation is linked to the rights of others, such as the right of children to go to school, and not spend all day fetching water.

We reflected on Pope Francis’ message that often the poorest in our communities are the worst-affected by climate change, even though they do little to contribute to it. We made signs to be displayed around all the taps in our school to encourage everyone to be ‘waterwise‘ and remember to turn off the tap after they have used it.