Water hazard: How the UN plans to provide clean drinking water for everyone in Rwanda

Published on September 17, 2013 04:02 by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Social

A winding path sweeps down past the banana trees to the swamp. Yves, aged 13, follows the path, fills a plastic jerry can, and carries the liquid cargo home on his head, despite knowing it will make him and his family ill. Fortunately the shallow pools do not attract crocodiles, but the water must be collected before the hippos gather at dusk.

Yves and his parents live in a cement-covered mud-brick hut in Bugesera District, southern Rwanda, where they grow beans, cassava and sweet potatoes, and keep pigs, cows and goats. They fetch muddy water from the swamp up to four times a day for drinking, cleaning and watering the livestock.

Yves' father, Theonaste, 30, says: "There are very many problems with the water. It has very many impurities. Clearly it is not clean." Sometimes the family find insects floating in food cooked in the water; sometimes, the children have to stay off school ill because of the diseases they have picked up. They get skin ailments and cracked feet.

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