Women Basically Ensure The Survival Of Their Communities In Rural Kenya

KILIFI COUNTY, Kenya ― Each morning before the heat rises, Kanze Kahindi sets out from her one-room hut near the village of Changojeni for a six-mile walk to the nearest small river. She returns eight hours later, balancing a yellow 5-gallon jerrycan of water on her head. Her chest and legs ache when she finally deposits the 42-pound container in her home, but there’s barely time to rest. Soon she’ll be cleaning and cooking food for her eight children. While men in communities like Kahindi’s till land and care for livestock, women and girls arguably have the most important responsibility when it comes to their family’s survival: fetching water to use for daily drinking, cooking, cleaning and irrigation. Changojeni is one of the driest villages in Kilifi County, in southeast Kenya. But water scarcity is a major problem in the entire area. Though the Galana River, connected to the Indian Ocean, flows through the county, many villages are too far away to access its water, and they’re largely shut off from modern conveniences like pipelines. Water collected from open sources, like dams and rivers, is often polluted. Kilifi County’s situation isn’t unique. Although Kenya is one of Africa’s more developed nations, only 63 percent of its citizens live in areas where water can be accessed nearby, according to World Bank statistics. On average, Kenyans must walk about six miles a day to collect water. Water has only become more scarc...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news