Twenty-eight years old Aalima Khatun is a wife of Md Mukaddam Sekh having four children (two daughters and two sons) lives in Sabgadha, Gaur Municipality-6 of Rautahat district, Province No 2, Nepal. Though the Sabgadha is a ward of Municipality, a village is characterized by low literacy, poverty and limited income opportunities. Aalima is also illiterate. The main occupation of the family of Aalima is small and seasonal businesses (mango and apple selling on a bicycle) by her husband and father-in-law as they have only 2 Katha of Land for faming besides a small house. She has a joint familhy of total fourteen members. Due to that they are facing a great difficulty in maintaining their livelihood through agriculture and a small business.
Due to that, the family has not been able to afford the cost of the installation of shallow tubewell. Aalima was alsways collecting the water from the public tubwell in the community for the domestice and drinking purpose. It was unnecessarily creating a burden for her to collect the water from the public tubewell may times that killed most of her time and hamperred her productive work in relation to her income generation activities and livelihood. In addition, her children along with other family members were always suffiering from water born diseases like skin disease and communicable diseases, i.e. diarrhoea because the water used by her family was contaminated with arsenic and e. coli.
One day, she became to know about the tube well supported to the marginalized families by the “Installation of Shallow Tube wells to provide safe and quality drinking water to communities in Province No 2 Nepal” project is being implemented by Mandwi with the technical and financial assistance from Penny Appeal and in coordination of the local government. She went to the ward chairperson of Sabgadha Sekh Jamsed. She shared her problem and requested for the tube well. After that, ward chairperson recommended her name for the tube well to Mandwi. Finally, the tube well as installed at her household. Through this, not only Aalima family but her 3 neighbors households and members are benefited from the safe drinking water. As a consequence, her burden of water collection has been solved now. Besides that, she is also feeling relief from the tension of suffering of family members and her children from water born diseases frequently. In this way, she is happy with getting such an opportunity of safe drinking water in the support of this project. She, her family and neighbors thanked local government Mandwi and Penny Appeal for their financial and technical assistance and coordination.
