Appeal: Your money can bring water of life to stricken villages

Selemani Hassan knelt over the village well and knocked the beads of sweat from his forehead. Battling the muggy morning heat, he slowly scooped water from the well, a rough pit dug deep in the sandy soil. But the water was almost gone; at the bottom, Mr Hassan dragged his pail through a milky-coloured puddle where two frogs were swimming.

"You think that is bad?" said Kassy Mlozi, chief of Mbulani village, standing over the open well. "The big problem are the baboons. If they get near the water, then we can't come near the well for weeks." He pointed to a bare-chested man stacking wood near by. "His job is to keep them away."

It did not always work, he admitted. Sometimes monkeys, rats or snakes got into the water. At other times, especially during the rainy season, human waste seeped in from the surrounding fields where it had been spread as fertiliser. That was when sickness felled the villagers like flies. "We get many cases of diarrhoea," he said. "Our children cannot got to school, and their parents cannot work."

Drought may be threatening millions of Africans with starvation but in Mkuranga, an impoverished district in central Tanzania, the problem is quality, not quantity of water. The hot humid climate can provide a cornucopia of exotic fruit and vegetables, but the water is disastrously poor. In the lush green fields, spindly coconut trees tower over clusters of mango, banana and cashew nut trees. By the road, dozy men sell jackfruit the size of small boulders. Women walk to market with piles of pineapple balanced on their heads.

But, like Mr Hassan, most villagers have to use makeshift wells – often just a hole in the ground, usually contaminated by animal or human waste – for their drinking water. The result is a host of diseases, ranging from bilharzia to amoebic dysentery. At best, the victims get sick. At worst, they die.

Mkuranga has some of the worst health indicators in Tanzania. One in 10 children dies before the age of five; more than 40 per cent of families do not have access to clean toilets. Why don't people simply search for water elsewhere? "We have no choice," Mr Hassan said, as he loaded his buckets of cloudy water on to the back of an old bicycle.

But soon there will be an alternative. Thanks to Amref, one of three charities Independent readers are helping this Christmas, a smart new concrete well, complete with a pump, is nearing completion. Across Mkuranga, clean water is becoming a reality. In the past two years, Amref has drilled more than 50 wells, which are starting to benefit 74,000 people, half of the area's population.

The programme manager, Babu Lolepo, said: "There are so many health problems here. We believe the first step to reducing them must be water."

At Kimanzichana village, a proud new pump stands amid a cluster of mud-walled houses. Residents pay 20 shillings, or just over 1p, for a bucket of water, maintenance money that is carefully collected to ensure the pump keeps working.

"The difference is dramatic," Amiri Mazoea, a village elder, said. "Before we used to have so many stomach problems. I even had to go to hospital myself once, and they put me on a drip. Now the sickness has really reduced."

But digging boreholes is not the only solution to the water woes. A little education is needed too, to combat some of the older beliefs of village life. For example, some villagers believe that disease is caused more by jini – harmful spirits in the ground – than by contaminated water. Juma Moge, Mbulani's medicine man, a sombre man wearing a Muslim skullcap and yellow flip-flops, said: "Those spirits can make people very sick. They can even kill."

Others are working to modernise such attitudes. In a nearby schoolhouse, men and women had gathered from around the area for training in how to manage and maintain a clean water supply. Mr Lolepo said: "Our work is not sustainable forever. We must train these people to take over from us."

He explained to the people how they could already see changes in their communities. Mwajuma Shomari, who has seven children, said: "Those old beliefs about the jini were there before, but now they are decreasing. People realise that health problems come from the water. And if they do not have a proper well, they must boil before drinking."

As she spoke, the pregnant grey clouds overhead split open, and large drops of water plopped on to the soil. The rains had come again. Hopefully, the water harvest will be better again this year.