Tuma Viela
Water, an easily accessible necessity in the UK and in most
of the developed world. It is easy to get cold, bottled, out of the tap; for
cooking, cleaning and washing our clothes. We don’t have to wait for a “rainy season”
or worry about the water being purified in case it carries waterborne
pathogens. As I am on a DFID funded placement, they risk assess everything to an
extreme degree so I have not been placed in a house where water shortage is a noticeable
problem. I am also very lucky that my host mum has a fridge and water filter so
I only have to run it through the filter before I can drink it out of a glass.
Some weeks we have been rationing water as it does not flow through the pipes to
the houses at all times. Residents have to wait until the water flows and then
open up their pipes to fill storage tanks, jerry cans or buckets.
Drinking water, for most people in Tamale, is purchased
in small 500ml sachet bags which can be purchased for approximately 15 peswas
(2.5p) each. This is the safest way to drink water without the risk of
infection. Unfortunately, in the ruralcommunities there is little or no access
to any water for drinking or otherwise. People have to travel great distances
to man-made damns or NGO/government sponsored water pumps where people pump the
water up from a well into containers they bring with them, a physically gruelling
task.
This week we visited our communities where they have the
same problem, our raising awareness session this time was focussed on disabilities.
We did 2 sessions in schools on drugs and another on menstrual health as it was
Menstrual Health Day on 28/05. Towards the end of the week we visited Tuma
Viela. This is a water sachet recycling centre where people donate empty sachets
which are then dried, cleaned and sewn into long “fabric like” yards and made
into some of the following items:
school
bag 250
pencil
case 100
raincoat
500
jacket
250
mat
500
cap
150
hat
150
The
numbers next to the items are the number of sachets you need to trade in to get
that item, they do not accept cash. This is a great way to tackle the littering
problem caused by a population that drinks their water out of small bags and
then drops them on the ground. The director wants to also promote employment of
people with disabilities which most of her staff had. There was also a section
that produced re-washable sanitary towels that could be used by girls/women who
cannot afford to buy single use ones. This is a problem which impacts many girl’s
education as they miss school each month due to the stigma around menstruation
made worse by not being able to afford sanitary products.
The
team had a good afternoon being shown their facilities as well as sorting and
trading in all the water sachets we had been collecting since the start of our
placement 8 weeks ago!
Websites for Tuma Viela:
Re-usable sanitary towels and panty liner in different sizes.
It all starts here, an individual water sachet and the big bags of 30 they are sold in
Collecting the sachets ready for sorting
Time to dry, clean and sort them.
A selection of end products
Another photo to prove I am really here
The team at Tuma Viela with our well earned sachet items
Finally, a half decent picture of a lizard. Oh look! ... buy one get one free
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