By International Medical Corps | Communications Team
The adolescence of a young woman unquestionably involves many challenges, but for one Ethiopian teenager—Selamawit—one such challenge stands above the rest: the struggle to find safe water. Her story is not an isolated instance, but is instead an example of what has become a disturbingly common issue when growing up in Ethiopia.
Ethiopia, Africa’s oldest independent nation and, to many, a symbol of liberty, is today affected by a lack of safe, accessible water. International Medical Corps’ recent water and sanitation activities in the affected town of Boloso Sore within Wolayita, a zone in south-central Ethiopia, have not only transformed the schools and communities in which they are based, but also the lives of individuals on a personal and profound level.
Selamawit, a 14-year-old from Boloso Sore, has not only been trying to gain an education and a future by attending school, but has already been helping provide for herself, her five siblings and her parents for half a decade. Living in one of the areas that the drought has hit the hardest, one of the most important, time-consuming and physically exhausting of her responsibilities involves finding water and carrying it back to her family for drinking, cooking and washing.
When we spoke to Selamawit about the situation, she told us about the challenges she also faced as a teenage girl lacking safe water for her personal hygiene. This had been a distressing issue for herself and her classmates before we provided safe water in her school.
This access to safe water has done more than provide a reliable water source; it has created a way for the girls to feel clean and comfortable—a way that they can retain their dignity. In this sense, the program has not only relieved Selamawit of concerns far beyond her years, but has enabled her "time to study and play with friends.”
Selamawit is just one of the thousands that International Medical Corps has reached with improved access to safe water in Wolayita, Ethiopia.
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