Water, health, safety and extra time

Birtukan Bulki (right) is happy since the water source is clean, reliable and now much closer to her residence.
Photo: Rebecca Girma/Mercy Corps

In many parts of Ethiopia, water — or the lack thereof — is a matter of life or death. Birtukan Bulki knows this better than most.

Mercy Corps is helping bring water — and much-needed assistance — to thousands like 28-year-old Birtukan. In order to increase access to potable water sources and improve the health families in targeted communities, we're implementing comprehensive water, sanitation and hygiene activities in the Konso and Derashe Special districts of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People Region (SNNPR) under the PROSPER project. This project includes development of new springs, as well as educating adults and children in improved hygiene and sanitation practices through the recruitment and training of volunteer community health workers.

Birtukan is a resident of the Bussa Kella kebele (neighborhood) of the Derashe special district, one of the areas benefiting from spring development. According to her, she used to travel for more than an hour to fetch water from unreliable and unprotected water sources. The women in the area have to travel through a forest, where they were constantly vulnerable to rape, abduction and attack of wild animals. She reiterated an incidence where one of her friends was abducted when she traveled to fetch water.

She has also mentioned that the problems were worse in the rainy seasons, due to a risk of repeated falling and breaking of insira the traditional clay water container used in this area. Furthermore, during these periods, the quality of the spring deteriorates due to run-off. This has resulted in high incidence of diarrhea among children and other members of the community, which led community members to spend the bulk of their income to get medical services.

As a volunteer community health worker, Birtukan is teaching community members to improve their hygiene and sanitation practices. This includes washing of their hands (before conducting different activities such as eating, feeding children and after using the latrine), latrine construction and how to keep water containers clean. She mentioned that there are already some changes in the community regarding hygiene and sanitation practices because of the project.

Birtukan also explained to me that the construction of this spring has begun to decrease the dropout rates of local schoolgirls, since they no longer have to travel long and far to fetch water. The construction of the spring, according to Birtukan, has helped women in the area to spend more of their time for productive household activities.

Having water closer to home is truly saving time — and lives — in places like Bussa Kella, for women like Birtukan.