AfricaPress-Tanzania: GALANGAL and Gidagamowd residents in Manyara Region have expressed their gratitude to Serengeti Breweries Limited (SBL) for funding water borehole that will see the two villages getting safe and clean water.
With a capacity of 156,000 litres per day, the project is part of SBL’s community support programmes known as Water of Life (WOL) which aims at giving communities across the country access to clean, safe and reliable water for free.
Gidagamowd Village Executive Officer (VEO), Jeremiah Mathiya said the lives of villagers will now be better as they will no longer struggle to get clean water as it was before.
“The lives of our residents have now changed for good; our people will definitely be healthier now because they are assured of clean and safe water and also most of their time that was spent on searching for water will be spent on economically productive activities,” he said.
Mariam Desiri of Gidagamowd village says she and her fellow villagers have had, year in, year out, to contend with serious water shortages in their village, the area being one of those backwaters that clean and safe water is a rare commodity.
She says the only source of water in the village is from the ponds; dirty water that they often share with their animals- making it even scarcer and exposing them and their children to waterborne diseases.
“Before this project I have had to walk for more than 15 kilometers to Vindadi Ward to collect water that we think is clean enough to drink because the water from our seasonal ponds is too filthy to drink,” she said.
Mariam adds: “We are really grateful to SBL for relieving us of this huge burden that we had because most of us women were unable to carry out our daily chores effectively owing to the fact most of our time was spent traveling long distances in search of water”.
Another villager, Askadi Dodaye says before the project, girls sometimes had to skip school days to help their mothers in scavenging for water or helping out at homes as their mothers roamed all over the place for clean water.
“We really thank SBL for providing us with the much-soughtafter commodity”, Dodaye said.
According to SBL Corporate Relations Director, John Wanyancha, over one million Tanzanians have benefited from the Water Life programme in the past 10 years.
He adds that similar projects have also been implemented in Iringa, Kilimanjaro, Mwanza, Tanga, Ruvuma, Dar es Salaam, Coast and Dodoma regions.
“Over the years, we have seen lives of families and communities turn around both socially and economically from these water projects especially girls and women who no longer spend long hours on finding clean water. Most of their time is instead better spent in attending school unlike in the past when their time alternated between irregular school attendances and searching for water,” Wanyancha said.
