New well brings hope!

For many villagers and service providers in the Magu district of Tanzania, accessing water is time consuming, expensive and often fails to meet their needs. 

Householders in Malili village face the daily problem of accessing water which has become particularly acute since the well, constructed in the 1980s, dried up due to a drop in local water table levels. 

Speaking with Agnes Kasema, a member of the Water User Committee in Maili village, UNICEF learned that householders were having to resort to open ponds for water during the rainy seasons. When these ponds became dry, they had to walk long distances and queue for 2-3 hours to collect water from holes dug by livestock owners for their cattle, leaving them susceptible to waterborne diseases such as typhoid, worm infections and schistosomaiasis.

Agnes told UNICEF, “sometimes you have to help the livestock owners, who are the ones that dug the holes, to water their cows, and only after that can you get some water for your bucket. Occasionally, after all that waiting and helping somebody with watering their livestock, the hole may have dried up, forcing you to go back home without any water.  That is our situation.”  

Villagers are hopeful that the construction of a new well, with funds from UNICEF NZ, will provide them with a reliable and safe water supply that is separate from livestock and free from water borne diseases.

Read about our water project in Tanzania