“Ever since she was a little girl, Sabina walked 4 hours per day to get water
World Vision journalist Kari Costanza walks a mile in Sabina’s shoes in rural Africa, experiencing her daily journey to retrieve clean water. ________________________________
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Character count: 7074 | Duration in seconds:807 | Characters per second: 8.77
this is the story of Sabina Sabina is much like me we are both mothers who work hard taking care of our families but there’s one big difference between Sabina and me since the age of seven Sabina has gone to the river nearly every day to fetch water I stayed with Sabina for 24 hours to watch how she used her time and how she used water I watched as her day began at sunrise and throughout the day as she cared for her husband Jacob a farmer who raised his livestock I watched as she mothered her children including her new baby I saw how water was part of every aspect of Sabinas day and how if she wasn’t using water she was walking to get it when that David AVI a four mile round-trip walk to a dirty river where she scoops water from a hole twice a day with her best friend Christina and I realized I couldn’t truly understand what it was like to walk and Sabina shoes unless I did it myself no it’s light right now maybe later it was very heavy this fence is just one of the many obstacles that the women face as they’re going to the river that’s the other obstacles our forms are everywhere they’re above us they’re below us step on thorns my hair gets caught in thorns and the water itself is an obstacle it’s an obstacle to a girl’s future because they have to get water all the time they’re not getting education they’re going to the river look there’s what there’s a container there okay it looks like somebody got water from here yeah geez that thing is full water is not just scarce here it’s really really yucky people come to the water source we’re right next to just because it’s so much easier to get water from here than to go all the way to the river but this kind of water is just a breeding ground for typhoid and cholera and waterborne diseases that cause diarrhea in fact just last night Sabina and Jacob had to take the baby to the health clinic Jude fever and then she vomited and had diarrhea every 10 minutes she had to have an IV for 24 hours okay I got it neither rock in my shoe the closer the closer I get to the river the more nervous I get because I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to carry this water this could be extremely embarrassing okay and there’s well oh my goodness we just got the go-ahead to the river Mary ran ahead to warn the women who are bathing there here goes nothing it’s ten after three we left at ten after two it’s taken us an hour to get here the water is today a bit browner than the other day we were here so we need to scoop another hole to get water kay you show me and I’ll do it okay it looks pretty Brown make the hole bigger with our hands okay so now we’re just getting this dirty water out of the hole that we dug oopsie we had a little landfill that incident here sorry that was my father when I was in a spelling bee I lost on the word arduous I’m still not sure how to spell it but now I know what it means I know this water is not good it looks okay but it’s not okay the little health clinic we went to today average is ten kids a day and this water is a big part of the reason they go so we brought a scale along so we can weigh these it’s so happy can you read the scale 57 for the big 157 pounds and the little one oh it’s so light 15 pounds for the little one so 57 plus 13 is 70 pounds yeah so now for the hard part Christina and Sabina are going home to me to put this on my back and carry it the two miles home but it was awful and the worst part of it is I have a huge audience watching me okay this is I gotta say a little prayer first okay this to the side thank to the knees beneath then up okay I can’t really get to the need this is too heavy to really get to the knees oh okay come on knees yeah okay then the up part so I get up now oh I feel like a Russian weightlifter mm-hmm all right then what do we do we put that one on here hey that came in more than a lakh yeah oh yeah yep that’s 70 pounds its 355 and I’ve just started and I’m already tired the straps are digging into my shoulders I think this would be the longest hour of my life I’ll just stand here for just a second just a second I’ll just rest for one second I know we’re not to the resting place yet I can do this I can do this we can do this I can’t go to the dentist but I can do this okay let’s go oh one thing the lady said to me is they hate how they get back aches when they do this they say the pain just builds and builds as they go and go and it takes a while for their back to stop aching when they get home I can feel it I can feel my back aching oops except we just started thank you so much Christina got me some kindling to use as a walking stick which is nice feel like Moses now with the Red Sea on my back Sabina makes this trip twice a day she uses about 13 gallons a day that’s for everything cooking cleaning drinking bathing and so in this trip I’m carrying half of the water she was today one of the most poignant stories Sabina told me was how she had seen running water once in her life was three years ago it was in place called laylan which has water it has Springs and people have water right in their yards and she went from house to house to see this incredible sight this water that came right from a tap that she didn’t have to get from the river and she said I never knew that there were places that weren’t like this and once I was there I didn’t want to come back I’m Sabina about her dreams her children it would be well yet even on and her dream is that they would all get an education the education she never got because she had to fetch water and then I asked her what her dream for herself is and she said I just like to be able to take a bath at my house know the game I have to go across the gate because there’s storm brushes on either side and as I’m going across the gate I’m remembering House of Mina went across this gate every day she was pregnant including the day she gave birth if she can do it nine months pregnant I can do it at forty seven maybe Robin no no what I can do this oh ouch hey oh yeah I can get up there right there oh my foot doesn’t really move like that when you done okay then then what do I do okay that this leg has to oh yeah okay then what getting down I’ve always thought about water in terms of disease how if you don’t have water or if you have bad water you get sick and you can die but I have a new understanding of water now it’s not just about disease if you don’t have water it robbed you of time it robs you of education Sabina didn’t get to go to school and now because she has to go for hours every day to get this water she doesn’t have the time that she wants to spend with her family and do the things that she actually wants to do like plant a kitchen garden and that doesn’t seem too much to ask to me so my wish for Sabina today is that water will come close to her so she won’t be chained to that river anymore and she’ll get back the time that she deserves and needs to have a full life would you like some water Gary Ghana dog Regan and Fanning Ali Ali no gimme gana Sabha yog okay League an answer on okay Regan and polygon on
Siabatou Sanneh of Gambia walked in the Paris Marathon with a bucket of water on her head to raise awareness about the struggles to attain clean drinking water in parts of Africa
Water for Africa’ in conjunction with Ogilvy &Mather, Paris has been awarded 5 CANNES Lions, including two ‘Gold’s’, at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity 2015. They took home Two GOLD’s, one Silver and two Bronze for their amazing campaign, ‘The Marathon Walker’ with Water for Africa, which saw a woman from Gambia, Saibatou Sanneh symbolically take part in the 42km Paris Marathon with 20kg of water on her head, a distance women walk in Africa every day to fetch water for their families. The full documentary depicting this beautiful story will be released this year. www.themarthonwalker.com
Water For People takes a look at the effects of the global water crisis on women and girls in developing countries. On average, women and girls carry 40 pounds of water 3.5 miles every day, hindering their opportunity to work or attend school, and continuing the cycle of poverty.
Character count: 2080 | Duration in seconds:190 | Characters per second: 10.95
when animals move toward water it’s one of nature’s great phenomena part of the eternal cycle of seasons for people in the developing world the same act can involve drudgery difficulty and miles of walking to and from a water source as primitive as a hand-dug well then waiting hours for a bucket of mud coloured liquid to percolate up slowly from the earth water that may well be contaminated though still welcomed by parched throats at home in virtually all developing countries finding caring and managing water is women’s work typically women and children can spend up to two-thirds of their waking hours hauling water the fill containers often weigh as much as 45 pounds the effort can consume 25 percent of a woman’s daily caloric intake the heavy weight creates long-term joint pain the strain on a woman’s hip and pelvic area can cause difficulties during pregnancy and the contact with contaminated water exposes women to a greater risk of disease finding and hauling water excludes them from education income generation and cultural and political activities without water toilets and privacy girls often drop out of school when they reach puberty it’s part of the reason why every 2 out of 3 illiterate people are women and why women make up 70% of the world’s poor this gender bias effectively removes women from life outside the home and family but it’s a fate that is not inevitable access to safe water near home can transform a woman’s life and the life of her children by reducing the time and resources spent hauling water access to adequate sanitation can give a woman privacy convenience safety and a chance for improved health there is an old saying in rural Indian villages that speaks to the enduring connection between women and water let your husband die it says but the earthen part of water should not be broken with your interest and support we can help women move from a life of illness and lost opportunities to a far more positive future for more information on our work to improve access to safe water and sanitation call us now or visit our website
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