Women love to talk, that is a universally shared characteristic of women in community. It is certainly true of the women in the village of Chipunda in southern Tanzania. The well is a social place for this community. When women come with their children to collect water, they stay and talk with the others that have come. They talk about their families and their farms, their relationships and the hardships they are facing. They laugh and cry together. This is the mortar that holds the bricks of a community together, love and care for one another.
They still did all of this before the deep-capped well was provided for them by Global Aid Network. But instead of enjoying the social aspects of collecting water in a safe place that’s near to their home and from a well that provides clean water for them and their families, they were traipsing through the jungle in search of any water source, clean or dirty, and hauling it back to their homes, day and night. They were suffering from many water-borne diseases that they would often debilitate them, making it even hard to get water.
Now they get to enjoy time together at the well, free from the suffering that they lived in for so long. Women will be women, no matter what they do, but they shouldn’t have to suffer while they do it.
Let’s remember these women this International Women’s Day.
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