Safe water for Kauthari 

Mwanahamisi Hamisi giving daughter Kauthari Ali a glass of clean water from the WaterAid funded well.

Credit: WaterAid / Marco Betti

Two year old Kauthari Ali knows nothing of the water problems her community used to face. Sitting happily on her mother's knee, sipping at a glass of cool, clean water, she's just returned, on her mother's back, from a five minute return trip to the village pump.

Kauthari will grow up in a household where there's a water butt full of water collected at the pump, enough for her to have a wash with and take a drink before she leaves for school every morning.

Maybe when she's a bit older, Kauthari's older brother and sisters will tell her how different life used to be. Kauthari is the seventh child of the Ali family, and the only one who's had safe water her whole life.

Despite its name of Mungumaji, meaning 'God water' in Swahili, Kauthari's village in the Singida District of Tanzania used to be far from blessed with safe water.

Until 2004 the community had to walk three kilometres to fetch water from hand-dug, open, unprotected wells, whose yields fluctuated according to the season.

"In the dry season there was very little water available in the traditional wells and sometimes we would have to dig five metres deep into the ground before we struck water. It would take 10 to 15 of us to dig a hole so deep. We would then collect water by lowering a bucket on a rope down into the traditional well." said Kauthari's mother, 45 year old Mwanahamisi Hamisi.

This all took time so all the children had to pitch in and help: "My children had to come and help me find water early in the morning, so they were often late for school and got scolded by the teachers." continued Mwanahamisi.

A traditional well in the Singida district, similar to the one used by Mwanahamisi to fetch her family's water.

Credit: WaterAid / Marco Betti

The poor quality of the water led to illness in the family, and in turn less food on the table. "We all got ill at that time. My husband and I both suffered from typhoid and the children got stomach aches and diarrhoea. When I was sick we weren't able to harvest our crops so we had a low yield that year."

Life changed three years ago when WaterAid and local partner organisation SEMA helped the community dig a well fitted with a handpump just a couple of minutes from the family's house. Now Mwanahamisi is able to give all her children clean, safe water and has more time to spend with them, meaning Kauthari and her siblings can have the healthy childhoods they deserve.

"Kauthari is the only one of my children who has had clean water her whole life so she's always been healthier than the others. Before, I was always saying to my family 'You must save the water', but now we have enough to be clean ourselves and to wash our clothes.

Now the walking distance to the pump is very close so I have more time for other activities like taking care of the children and preparing lunches for my children to take to school," said Mwanahamisi.