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When World Vision installed a new borehole, villagers in Haalumba, Zambia, developed a new respect for girls and women— and a renewed perspective on God’s provision.
Timmy Hantemba can be seen at the new pump every morning and night. But he never used to fetch water.
“Now [that] we have water, things are a lot different,” he said. “I help my mother in the garden. I don’t think fetching water is a girl’s job. I will help my wife fetch water.” Timmy wants to become a teacher someday.
“It amazes me that he fetches water,” said Clara Mwemba, 12. “Most of the boys herd cattle.”
Clara lives with her grandmother, Alice Mambo. The borehole has changed her life as well. “I get less sick now,” Alice said. “I used to get diarrhea and cholera. We used to drink very dirty water.”
Carrying water was not an easy task for the petite girl. “I had to carry heavy buckets,” Clara said. “I would be too tired to go to school. It was very dangerous. You could fall and drown.”
Today, Clara is seventh in a class of 85. She attends a water, hygiene, and sanitation club at school where they study from the World Vision devotional, Jesus the Source of Living Water.
“God sent World Vision to bring water here,” said Winnie, secretary of the committee that manages the pump in Haalumba. “We have preached to everybody that God has given this to us so we must care for it.”
Clean water has brought good health, spirituality, and equality.
“Because of the borehole being nearby, more boys are willing to fetch water,” Winnie said. “In the past, girls fetched water ... In the future, they may be equal. They may both fetch water.
“It makes me happy as a mother and a woman that the girls are no longer seen as a tool to get water.”
