Fourteen year old Devi Kumari lives in Satu Pasal, Nepal with her family. The women of the village worked with WaterAid's partner NEWAH to build a water supply close to their homes while the village men were fighting with the army. Before they had their safe water supply they used to have to collect water from a dirty river at the bottom of the hill. When the men returned they were so inspired by the women's work that they decided to build a path from the village to the new water point.

Devi's grandmother Devaka Kahtri explains the difference that water has brought to her family's life.

"We used to get water from the stream, it was very dirty. The children would get sick with diarrhoea at least once a month. Now that hardly ever happens. A neighbours son died four years ago from diarrhoea and it is still happening in villages further up the hill where they don't have safe water."

Sixteen year old Ajemo Catherine has a six month old baby called Acedu-Lawrence and lives with her husband's family in a small compound in Dokoro, Uganda. They have two bulls, five goats and grow millet for bread and cassava as a stable food.

Ajemo-Catherine gets up at around 6am every day and after a wash she sweeps the house and sets off to the nearby well to make her first collection of water. The well is called Ocor-Irionion and was built by the community with support from WaterAid. She is pleased to have clean water for her baby as she knows without it he wouldn't be healthy.

After carrying this water home she does some work in the fields tending the crops. Breakfast isn't until around 12am when she eats some cassava or pumpkin. After this she carries on working in the fields with her baby on her back. The next task is to collect firewood before lunch which is about 3pm. She then has a short rest. On Saturdays Catherine does the washing. She also has weekly trips to the market. Evenings are spent having a meal and talking until going to bed.

Seventeen year old Fiona Moonga (in the white top) and Melody Chilala live in Hampandula Village, Zambia which has had a WaterAid well since 1996. Before this the villagers had to collect water from a traditional well, a muddy hole in the ground, a kilometre away from the village.

The community chose to have a bucket and windlass rather than a pump for their well, as they find it easier to maintain. When they completed the project they held an inauguration ceremony to open the well, with dancing and singing.

Fiona and Melody are cooking nshima, a cooked porridge made from ground maize and water. Nshima is the staple diet of Zambians, particularly rural Zambians. It has the consistency of mashed potatoes and a fairly bland flavour, and so is eaten with a more flavoursome relish (usually cabbage relish). Fiona and Melody have added crushed nuts to their mixture for extra flavour. Nshima is very filling after only a few mouthfuls which means it is a cheap way of staving off hunger. If a family is poor then they risk malnutrition when it is the main part of a family's diet as it does not contain many vitamins and not much is required to feel full.

"Before we had the new well we to ensure we boiled the water from the old well very thoroughly before we could oven begin to prepare the nshima." Fiona explains. "We like the new well very much indeed as it is near to us, it has good water and it is kept clean all the time."

Eighteen year old Hawa Salimua is newly married. She lives in Mzalule, Malawi where a WaterAid well was installed in 2001.

"I collect water from the handpump three times a day, in the morning, afternoon and late afternoon," she says. "I use the water to wash my clothes, bathe, cook and clean. The water is much sweeter than it used to be when it was an open well. It was dirty then, but now it's clean.

"We used to have a bucket on a string that we pulled up from the well and debris used to fall in which caused people to have terrible stomach pains. I was always getting diarrhoea with extremely painful stomachache and sometimes I remember seeing blood in my faeces. Now those stomach pains have vanished and it feels so hygienic to be drinking this water. I feel that my children will be born into a much better future because of this clean water."