By Katie Fotofili | Project Leader
In past reports, we have discussed the long distances women must trek in search of water. Another time consuming part of water collection is the wait. In rural Benin, women spend an average of 62 minutes every day fetching water while men spend an average of just 16 minutes on the same task.
Over the course of the dry season, water levels drop precariously, causing long lines to form at open wells. The wait is long because filling one’s basin requires lowering the “puisette” (a bag made from the inner tube of a tractor trailer tire) to the bottom, and waiting for the water to trickle in, before hauling it up and lowering it again. Long lines can also be found at manually operated water pumps. Here, the ability to get water is determined by how fast a woman can move a lever by hand or foot—clearly, a time-consuming venture. As women stand in line waiting, time for other essential activities trickles away.
“Leisure time, school-attendance, studying, and independent economic pursuits are among the first to go when time is taken from women. Depriving girls of education and women of economic independence are key factors in keeping a family and community in poverty,” says Sandra Philips, the Solar Electric Light Fund’s (SELF) Benin Project Manager
The potable water access points installed by SELF not only deliver clean water, but valuable time to the women using it—helping to address the issue of “time poverty” in the developing world. Our wells do not dry up or run out, nor do they require manual operators. A solar-powered pump can not only pump at the rate permitted by a given borehole, but the cisterns we install at each pump ensure that water is stored during times when no one is using the well. This way, when women arrive to collect water, all that is required is the turn of a spigot.
The women of Benin wait patiently for us to fulfill our promise of a watering station. While we are more than half way to our goal, we still need to raise $8,000. Please share our report with your friends so that we can not only help bring clean water to families in Benin, but give the gift of time to women who must currently wait in long water lines every day.
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