Mauritania: Water taps free children up for school
In the desert, water can be scarce. Although ten-year-old Bintou has had access to safe water for a year now, thanks to a pump in her village, extracting it from the ground has been challenging at best.
“Often, my children would fall ill because of pumping water,” Bintou’s mother, Tislim Salik, says of the knee and chest pains her children would get from using the foot-operated water pump located in their village.
Difficult job
Ahmed Salem Benjegue, the chief of Bintou’s village, has lived in the area all his life. “We had to spend a lot of energy in order to get water,” the father of 12 says of the pump. That’s why parents would often send their children to fetch water because they have more strength than they do for the task, he adds.
“Sometimes we send four or five children,” he says of the families in his village.
The process often interfered with schooling. “Sometimes the children would stay there until 2 p.m. to get the water,” says Ahmed, adding that people would start lining up from 7 a.m. to collect water from the foot-operated water pump.
All-day job
Bintou and her sisters were responsible for gathering the water in their family. Her sisters would spend most of the morning in the queue, and Bintou would join them at noon.
To make matters worse, the pump would sometimes break, sending people in search of unsafe drinking water from other sources. This often lead to guinea worm and diarrhea.
To make gathering water safer, easier and less time-consuming, World Vision installed three blocks of water taps in Bintou’s village. Donations came from the World Vision Gift Catalogue.
Quick and easy
The three blocks of water taps are located in different areas of Bintou’s village. “We don’t need to line up,” says Bintou, who prefers using the new water taps. “With this one, all you have to do is turn the tap on.”
“Children are now busy at school and it’s up to the mothers to fetch water,” adds Ahmed.
Like many other children in her village, Bintou has more time to focus on her studies. “I enjoy learning French and Arabic,” she says.
Bintou’s mother is happy that her children not only have clean water to drink, but they also have the time to focus their attention on other important things such as their education. “We thank World Vision for providing us with the taps,” she says.
