When governments don’t provide basic services (for whatever reason) like accessible clean water for impoverished people organisations like TAWINA are vital. Girls in rural Malawi are expected to fetch water for their family’s drinking, cooking and cleaning needs. Girls in the Mgonera area had to walk long distances for clean water each morning before they could go to school. Two wells had degraded leading to unsafe water and so the girls had to walk to the river/more distant wells..
TAWINA’s Mgonera Water Project provided the resources to protect two shallow wells with pumps. The project has benefited 7 villages and halved the distance women and girls need to walk to fetch clean water.
The school age girls can now get to school on time and have more energy to devote to their studies. Educated girls are more likely to be healthier, resist child marriage and early pregnancy and lead more fulfilling , more productive and happier lives.
The project has also improved the lives of about 240 households, reduced incidence of childhood diarrhoea and other water borne diseases. The reduced time devoted to water fetching and having healthier children has helped the village women to gain time for economic activities and income thus increasing their ability to keep their daughters in school.