Community water security - UN-Water

Water for Life
33
Women and men work together
When the water committee in a small Mexican village planned to pipe water to the
village from a large spring, they decided they had enough money to install a shared
tap stand for every 2 houses. At the village assembly the men from the water
committee announced that the taps would be used to provide water for drinking
and cooking. This was good for the village, they said, because now the women
would not spend all day carrying water from the river and boiling it to make it safe
to drink.
A woman at the assembly stood up and asked, “What about washing clothes?”
One of the men from the water committee said, “You can continue to wash clothes
in the river as you always have done.” A second woman stood up and asked,
“What about bathing our children?” The man said, “You can continue to bathe the
children in the river as you always have done.” A third woman stood up and asked,
“What about our home gardens? We need water to grow vegetables.”
The women felt that their voices had not been heard. They said that there was
not a single woman on the water committee and so women’s needs would not be
met. The women demanded that they be allowed to join the water committee and
help make a new plan. The rest of the assembly agreed.
The new water committee made a different plan. Rather than a tap for every
2 houses, they would install a tap and a wash basin for every 6 houses. Though
they would walk to collect water, they would also be able to wash clothes, bathe
children, and clean corn right in the village. The tap stand would be used for
drinking water and the washbasin for everything else. This would help ensure
that the drinking water stayed clean. And they would use the wastewater from the
washbasin to water their home gardens.
The plan was popular among the men as well because it would give them a
place to wash their tools when they returned from the cornfields each day. In this
way, the villagers met many of their needs at once.