So you can imagine how poor rural communities fare in such an environment. Pure, life-sustaining water lies meters under the earth. Layers upon layers of sediment come between families and water. Most of these mud-hut neighborhoods have only hand drawn wells. The type of wells you see in illustrated childrens’ books about medieval times. Wells with stone walls and a bucket attached to a rope. Water from such wells is often putrid with the decaying bodies of rats and moles which burrow their way in. Trash and other waste finds its way into the well’s opening. The result? Illness and death in the water.
Faced with fetid, spoiled water in their community wells and rivers, many women and children must go elsewhere for water. Yellow jerry cans strapped to their backs, these Ethiopians must walk miles to fill their burdens. The more fortunate ones travel by donkey cart. This chore sometime consumes half or more of their day. Even after such a long and arduous journey, the water they collect isn’t always safe to drink.
This is the reality for 58% of Ethiopians.
That’s where Water is Life comes in. Since 2006, this foundation has worked together with Selam Awassa Water Drilling Works and Sanitation PLC to drill over 158 wells all across rural Ethiopia. One well at a time—they’re drastically changing the lives of those in the surrounding communities.
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
This quote, in rising silver letters, graces the pump just outside the Mother Teresa school. At times it is barely visible through the clusters of schoolchildren who swarm around its stainless steel frame. About 300 rural children attend this school. Most of them can attribute this opportunity (in part) to the well itself. Instead of spending their day trudging into town and back, the girls and boys come to school for water. Girls pump water out for laundry and cooking after classes. They don’t have to make the agonizing choice between water and education.
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Early morning at the river is a chaos of life and color. Dirty t-shirts strew the bank in piles of ruby and sapphire cloth, waiting to be washed. Battered, yellow jerry cans grace the backs of wearied donkeys, calling out a song of hallow plastic as they are trotted down to the water. Children half a donkey’s height wade in the swollen brown river, scooping water into the buckets with their hands. This water will be carried back over a kilometer to their homes, where it will be used for cooking and laundry.
The river is dark, colored with mud, filth and animal feces. This was the water they had to drink. This water brought disease and death, but it was all they had.
Now, just a few meters up the red-dirt road is a well.
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The settlement is small, just a few mud huts placed under the shelter of the surrounding trees. Farming is the trade of most of these villagers. So far away from the main road, life here is especially hard for unmarried women.
“There is no one to help me,” one older woman says. “Not even my brother will help me.”
With no husband and no children, this woman has turned to the well for help. She beams with pride as she leads visitors through her garden. It’s only a few feet away from the well, capitalizing on the water runoff with ditches and culverts she dug by herself. Lush, green papaya trees tower out of the soil, the promising buds of fruit swelling at the base of their branches. Other, less dramatic vegetables pepper the ground, waiting for harvest. Once they are ripe, the woman will gather them and sell them, eking out a living that would have been impossible before the well.
It’s hard to believe that such a simple tool can change lives in such drastic ways. Yet that is exactly what these wells are doing. Water is education. Water is opportunity. Water is life.
While in Ethiopia we worked for Water is Life and Salaam, a company set on providing education and training for poorer Ethiopians. David made a brochure for them and took pictures of their work as well:
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