By George Yap, Program Director
If one were to visit a typical "health post" in rural Africa, water and sanitation-related diseases like diarrhea and intestinal worms would likely be among the top three reported illnesses. If this facility had a ward, at least half of the beds would be occupied by patients suffering from water-related diseases. Unfortunately, many rural people live too far from these facilities and have neither the means, nor resources, to get to them. Even if people could manage to reach the health post, they probably would not be able to afford the necessary medicine, assuming that it was available.
Basic sanitation facilities such as this one in Bachoo District help to significantly increase human and environmental health.
WaterCan works with the local organization Oromo Self-Reliance Association (OSRA) to help bring clean water and hope to rural places like Bachoo District which is located about 100 kilometers south of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital. Most of the land has been cleared by subsistence farmers to grow food crops. The few trees that are present, mostly eucalyptus, are found around villages and individual homesteads. Water collectors, usually women and girls, must spend several hours each day performing the tiring task of fetching water from a distant and often polluted river or stream.
The arid Sinbirro Cherecha landscape led many villagers to believe that water would never be found below ground.
Some villagers rely on traditional unprotected wells to meet their water needs. They must dig to a depth of 30 metres or more to get to the water table. Because heavy black soils dominate the area, wells frequently collapse during the rainy season, forcing villagers to dig new ones every year - a dangerous task that can take as long as two months. These wells are easily polluted and pose the danger of children falling into them. Water is particularly scarce during the dry season and villagers are forced to walk even further in search of it.
A young woman uses a community washing sink. Such facilities help to facilitate good hygiene practices.
The recent completion of a 40-metre deep WaterCan well means that the residents of Sinbirro Cherecha Village in Bachoo District no longer have to fetch water from a polluted river several kilometers away. According to Ato Alemayahu, OSRA's General Manager, community members did not believe that water could be found in the ground so close to the village. But when the drilling rig struck the water table and water gushed out of the hole, people laughed and danced with joy! Community washing sinks and bath stalls have been constructed near the well. Mrs. Yeshi Negas, a member of the local Water Management Committee, told me that because the river was so far away, most people bathed only once or twice a year. I learned that it was especially difficult for the women because they were too embarrassed to bathe in the open. Now, says Mrs. Negas, people are able to bathe more frequently and thus feel better about themselves.
A mother and her children in Sinbirro Cherecha using the new hand pump to collect clean drinking water.
