Safe Water Helped End Deadly Diseases

Safe Water Helped End Deadly Diseases

Access to safe drinking water is an absolute necessity for everyone in the community because water is considered one of the essential elements in human life. If there was no water, there would be no life on the earth. It is quite important that the water which we drink and consume for any purpose should be clean and healthy. It must be free of any kind of germs and chemicals that cause diseases and pose a potential threat to human life. We may have heard or read that on many occasions hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives by drinking polluted or contaminated water throughout history in different parts of the world.

This is why the residents of Aliwad village, Ismailkhil Mandozi district of Khost province prioritized the construction of a much-needed water supply network soon after the Citizens’ Charter National Priority Program of the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD/CCNPP) covered this community. Located some 12KM to the southwest of Khost City, the Aliwad village consists of 150 families where most of the residents are busy with agricultural activities.

Said, Zahirudin 65, a villager: “We used to drink water from rainwater harvesting ponds in the past. Inasmuch as the water was polluted, it usually caused a lot of diseases in villagers. These diseases included Malaria, Typhoid Fever, Hepatitis, etc. If there was no rain, we had to bring water from remote areas either on donkeys and wheelbarrows or on our heads and backs. Fortunately, once the water supply network has been constructed by the Citizens’ Charter, over 1,000 villagers had an opportunity to gain access to potable water in abundance inside their houses through a pipe scheme extended from the water reservoir over an area of 1,000 square meters across the community.”

“The villagers have hired a man from their own side for a salary of AFN 8,000 per month in order to maintain and operate the water supply network’s solar-powered pump to fill the reservoir twice a day so that the villagers could have enough water anytime they need,” added Zahirudin.

The 23.5-cubic meter-water reservoir constructed at sum of AFN 1,750,000 disbursed by the Citizens’ Charter including more than 15% community contribution has a capacity of 34,550 liters of water at a time.