Water for the next generation

Imagine having a small, muddy pool as your only source of water.  Every day you have to go there and wait for hours in a long queue.  Wait as water slowly seeps through the mud.  And wait longer until enough water has collected to fill a basin.  Then lug your heavy load home.

It sounds tough enough on the best of days.  But imagine there's no let up when you find out you're pregnant.  As you grow month by month and your energy dwindles, you still have to go to the muddy pool every day.  And carry the water home every day until you give birth.

When the baby is ready for its first drink of water, there's no alternative but to give him or her water from the muddy pool.  Water that could host any number of lethal diseases.

I am happy that my new baby will have good water and not suffer the way the other children did.  I hope that clean water will help my children to develop, to go to school and finish their education.

Apoyanga Nash from the remote village of Asamponbisi in the Upper East Region of northern Ghana doesn't have to imagine this.  It was a daily reality for her for years, and throughout her first four pregnancies.

Pregnant for the fifth time, forty year old Apoyanga explains the difference in her life now that she has access to safe water from a hand dug well that WaterAid's partner Rural Aid helped her community to construct three years ago:

"I have lived here for around seventeen or eighteen years, since just before my first child was born.  Before the pump was here, we used to go to the stream to fetch water.  There wasn't enough water there.  In the dry season we had to queue.  The water didn't flow; we had to dig a scoop hole and wait for the water to seep up.

"When the children drank that water, they used to get diarrhea and stomach pains.  We didn't understand exactly what was wrong but we knew it was because of the water.

"In the time that I have lived here in Asampombisi, our lives have improved now that we have clean water.  Now our health is changing and improving.  We don't suffer from diarrhea and stomach pains any more.  Now I don't spend much time collecting water, I have time to do other work around my home, like washing and cooking and I have enough time to weave baskets.

"I am happy that my new baby will have good water and not suffer the way the other children did.  I hope that clean water will help my children to develop, to go to school and finish their education."