Making change happen

A woman collects water from an unprotected source shared with animals.

Credit: WaterAid / Alex Macro

Amina Sunja from Unyanga village in Tanzania gets up at 6am each day for the four hour journey to collect her water from an unprotected source.

"The water is not clean," She explains, "When it makes my children ill with bad stomachs I have to take them into Singida for treatment, which is a 10 km walk."

But life for Amina is about to change, thanks to a WaterAid supported project that her community is undertaking. The water supply, hygiene and sanitation projects funded by WaterAid are of great importance to the communities in Tanzania and the results have had a huge impact on their daily lives.

Amina Sunja looks forward to the new well being constructed with WaterAid's support.

Credit: WaterAid / Alex Macro

"This new water source will save me a lot of time," explains Amina. "Each household will pay 300Tshs [approximately 15p] per month, which will help with repairs."

WAMMA, WaterAid's main partner in Dodoma, Tanzania, is now more than a decade old and has become a model of cooperation with government agencies in promoting integrated water and sanitation services.

"We have been liberated," says Michael Mpanduka, Chairperson for Zajilwa village where a pump and engine project serving more than 4200 people was installed by the community with WAMMA's help. Before the pump the villagers had been spending up to 15 hours queuing at one water point during the peak dry season.

Another example of the impact of WaterAid's work in Tanzania can be found at Haneti where 3600 villagers now have safe water after the rehabilitation of their water points.

"We women are relieved from the burden of having to fight for clean water, we are now opening up new businesses, gardening and attending to farms more efficiently," says Hajira Mdimu the Women's Councilor of the Haneti ward. "Please send our great appreciation and thanks to those who supported us."

In addition to water projects the WAMMA teams have been able to support communities with Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation (PHAST) training. PHAST is a tool used to create hygiene and sanitation awareness in communities in order to change people's attitudes and behaviour toward these often taboo subjects.

WaterAid is also encouraging child to child education in 10 villages which helps to create a culture in which the awareness of hygiene health risks is taught and spread from an early age.

The WaterAid programme in the Dodoma region has been able to achieve and sustain 80% sanitation coverage. Here efforts are in the pipeline to design approaches that will fill the remaining gap to provide everyone in the region with somewhere safe and clean to go to the toilet.

WaterAid expects to help provide more than 26,000 people in the Dodoma region with clean, safe water and sanitation in the coming year as well as consolidate the hygiene education and sustainability of water and sanitation projects.

As Amina Sunja says, while she looks forward to the completion of her village well, "I am very thankful to WaterAid and all its supporters for helping us."