Water Women of Africa

Before I started writing my next post on community projects, a very recent BBC news article struck me with the headline: 'Zimbabwe community gets water from a cemetery'.  Immediately drawn to this news story, I kindly request your short attention to the following snippets covering the current situation among the residents in Hopley, Zimbabwe. The community of Hopley's experience tells the complex story of the multidimensional factors involved in Zimbabwe's water crisis. From drying bore holes to failed piped water installations for a decade, Hopley suffers mainly along the physical, but also increasingly human interface, similar to Tanzania's case described earlier.  Unfortunately, as the residents continuously seek out to wells on decomposing cemetery sites as a result, the future looks unpromising.  Rainfall in the region is not only projected to reduce further by almost 20% , but the rather brief account of plans for community pipelines underway don't seem t...

  Following from my introduction on the gender disparities of water in Africa, I want to use this second post to illuminate the various ways in which Africa encounters water scarcity. As I was recently drawn to the compelling letter a young Tanzanian girl, Eva , wrote to former President Barrack Obama in January 2015, I will delve into the case study of Tanzania to further highlight the difficulties of safe water provision and extraction. Water inaccessibility in Africa greatly enhances and reinforces deep inequalities in regards to gender divides, which may only be exacerbated by climate change. It is, therefore, crucial to understand both the interactions of human and physical landscapes on multiple scales, where it be urban and rural. In doing so, a critical approach is required in examining why countries and regions are termed as water scarce, in order to foster future water projects as adaptation strategies in changing landscapes for rural and urban communities.  Before s...