(2 Jun 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jinja, Uganda – 16 May 2025
1. Close of earthen material for flooring
2. Various of EarthEnable staffs working on a floor
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jinja, Uganda – 17 May 2025
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Noeline Mutesi, Marketing Manager, EarthEnable:
++PARTIALLY COVERED++
“Currently our communities have been facing issues that are a result of the dust that comes from the mud floors and the mud plasters. Such diseases have been like flu, malaria whereby mosquitoes hide in those dusty places, and all those other insects that bite people’s bodies. But once we install for people these floors that are decent, without the dust, we get to get rid of all of these.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jinja, Uganda – 16 May 2025
4. Various of EarthEnable staff working on a floor
5. Wide of Rehema Namukose walking in front of her home
6. SOUNDBITE (Luganda) Rehema Namukose, EarthEnable client:
++PARTIALLY COVERED++
“The dust was too much and you don’t even get to clean very well. All the household items get full with dust so because of that we don’t even get to buy nice household items because that’s just waste of money with all the dust in the house. But if they put this cement in my house, the house will be very clean and dust free and I will be able to buy new household items.”
7. Various of Rehema preparing a meal
8. Various of EarthEnable staffs working on a floor outside
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jinja, Uganda – 17 May 2025
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Noeline Mutesi, Marketing Manager, EarthEnable:
++COVERED++
“This product is very much affordable for our people because we don’t ask them to pay for the money up front, we get to spread it for over a period of time whereas someone gets to pay in installments and this is in turn becoming very very much affordable to them."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jinja, Uganda – 16 May 2025
10. Various of Simon Tigawalana’s children outside
11. Various of Simon Tigawalana’s children playing inside their house
STORYLINE:
Simon Tigawalana dreamed for years of doing something about the dirt floors in his small house, blaming them for making his family sick. But in a rural area in one of the world’s poorest countries, making them over with concrete was simply out of reach.
Then a company called EarthEnable approached him to offer an alternative: a clay-based earthen floor that could give him a durable, sealed floor for less than half the cost of concrete. Tigawalana now has the new floor in two rooms and hopes to add it soon in the last room.
EarthEnable, which seeks to upgrade housing across Africa, has been promoting and installing the clay-based floors in Uganda since 2017.
Besides eliminating dust that can irritate breathing, they’re credited with reducing infestations of jiggers — a parasitic flea that can burrow into the skin and lead to pain, itching and infection. Uganda’s health ministry says poor hygiene due to dirt floors contributes to such infestations.
The first step in building the floor is digging and leveling the surface. Then murram — local red soil rich in iron and aluminum oxides — is mixed with sand and water and then compacted. After two weeks of drying time, masons use wooden floats to smooth and further compact the surface.
Next is pasting: applying a fine clay screed to further smooth the surface and prepare it for a final sealant, a flaxseed-based varnish that hardens into a durable plastic-like resin.
A typical floor costs around 240,000 Uganda shillings (about $65), which EarthEnable says is about 70% cheaper than concrete. Buyers can pay in installments.
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