Serious water woes affect Tsholotsho villagers

Environment
BY JENNIFER DUBEFOURTEEN-year-old Banele Donga, a pupil at Ngwizhu Primary School in Tsholotsho, spends most of her school time solving water problems than doing her Grade 6 Maths home work.

Banele walks for about two kilometres to fetch water from unprotected wells along the Gwayi River, usually after a hectic day at school where Maths and English give her a hard time.

On weekends, she makes the river trip three times a day.

“I can balance a 20-litre bucket on my head without holding it with my hands,” she said with a smile. “Sometimes when my mother and I get to the river,  the water will be muddy especially in the afternoon when the livestock come to drink but we fetch it all the same.

“When we get home, we place the bucket with water in a safe place and the mud settles at the bottom of the bucket and we can then use the water for cooking.”

She said sometimes her mother gets water purifying tablets from the local clinic.

Standard Community  caught up with Banele in Tsholotsho’s ward 6 last week during a United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef)  organised tour of Tsholotsho ahead of the launch of a US$50 million Rural Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programme.

The programme could be a panacea  to water problems faced by Banele and many other rural folk, especially women and children.

Siyaphambili village head, Phillip Mpala said water problems dated back from as early as 1963 when his parents moved into the area when he was a small boy.

“I have 85 homesteads in this village and they all fetch water from unprotected wells in the river,” he said. “We sited three strategic points in the village where boreholes can be sunk to service the whole village and I have pleaded with the councilors to assist since the year 2000 but help has not yet reached us.

“We will die in river wells and it does not look like our children’s life will be any better because apart from the councillors, we do not know which other doors we can knock on.”

The WASH programme is aimed at the rehabilitation of 30 piped water schemes in 30 districts, construction of 15 000 latrines for the most vulnerable in 10 000 communities, construction of 15 000 latrines in 1 150 primary and 350 secondary rural schools. It is also aimed at rehabilitating 7 400 broken down boreholes and drilling 1 500 new boreholes.