Transforming lives

Boyce Nyirenda, the longest serving member of WaterAid staff in Malawi.

Credit: WaterAid / Jon Spaull

Boyce Nyirenda, the longest serving member of WaterAid staff in Malawi, describes the difference that clean water and hygienic sanitation has made to the lives of the communities that he has worked with over the last year.

"Take me to the new well, I want to see!" Those were the words of an elderly, visually impaired woman from the Salima District in Malawi who insisted on being taken to a newly constructed WaterAid water point. Using her fingers to feel the brick lined well, she exploded into a sharp cry of celebration with her arms up in the air.

WaterAid has continued to make progress in improving the health and livelihoods of communities in Malawi like those of the woman described above. Increasing vulnerable people's access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene education has resulted in a great transformation of lives.

People who used to travel long distances, often two to three hours before daybreak, in search of potable water, now have so much more time with a safe water source only a few meters from their houses. Women, who feared crocodile attacks when fetching dirty river water, can now turn on a tap and watch clean water collect in their containers.

"Our village was one of the smelliest areas you could never go to," said village headman Mtakuleni at a community meeting aimed at reviewing the sanitation projects in his village.

"We used to breathe air saturated with human fecal matter because children would defecate anywhere. One needed to walk along designated footpaths always else you would trample on fresh fecal matter with your bare feet. Our human dignity was almost non existent, as young and old would squat under small bushes to relieve themselves, often colliding with one another in such places."

Over the past year WaterAid has also worked on building the capacity of its six partners through a series of training courses aimed at the transfer of relevant knowledge and skills. These include better planning, budgeting and transparent financial management, designing of contracts, water quality monitoring and using participatory hygiene and sanitation tools.

Communities have been trained in how to cast sanitation slabs, shallow well construction, financial management, the importance of hygiene and sanitation in improving health, maintenance of facilities and protecting water catchment areas.

A number of WaterAid's activities are aimed at influencing other organizations to ensure those villages without access to water and sanitation are targeted for assistance first. Other activities aim to influence government policy to meet the needs of those living in poverty.

The Government of Malawi estimates that four million Malawians, almost a third of the population, still don't have access to safe water, especially in rural areas.

Sanitation and hygiene education has resulted in a great transformation of lives.

Credit: Alixandra Fenton

WaterAid is continuing to improve this situation. For example, over 17,000 people benefited from water projects in 2006/07, and 31,000 from sanitation projects.

With WaterAid's involvement communities can see a ray of hope. They no longer consider themselves as victims but victors. WaterAid in Malawi will continue to improve the health and livelihoods of marginalized and vulnerable communities.