"From Struggle to Hope: How Solar Water Changed Turawa"
Community of Turawa in Batagarwa local government area of Katsina state is fortunate to have a new solar powered borehole under the SURWASH program.
“From Struggle to Hope: How Solar Water Changed Turawa”
In Turawa, a community located within Dandagoro town in Batagarawa Local Government area, residents used to start the day with the usual struggle to search for water for their daily usage. Women and children were usually seen trooping to some few available open wells that were considered unsafe for consumptionor in the alternative, go for the few water vendors to buy the little commodity they could afford at an exorbitant rate.
This dire situation that lingered for a long period of time almost made it difficult for the residents of the area to adequately meet their daily water needs including food preparation, washing, bathing and other household chores.
Worried by these challenges, community leaders and other stakeholders made several attempts to look for solutions through seeking for intervention from the government at all levels, until the advent of the Sustainable Urban and Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene SURWASH program.
The SURWASH program of which Batagarawa Local Government Area was among the benefitting LGAs in Katsina State came as a big succour to the lingering water shortage faced by Turawa community, as it was provided with a solar powered borehole fitted with an8,000-litre tank and reticulation that now serves the water needs of the community.
For Mallam Shafi’u Lawal, a resident of the community, who also serves as the chairman of the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Committee WASHCOM, the facility had brought a lot of relief to the people. “Before this intervention, we used to buy each jerry can of water at one hundred Naira with no guarantee of getting the commodity anytime we need it, because it had to be brought from far away locations by some water vendors operating within the community”.
According to him, “But now having it at our doorstep, our health status and overal lives have changed for the better as we could have easy access to it for all our domestic needs and have more time to focus on other engagements like going to markets and attending to some family and other social issues”.
On how to maintain the facility to ensure that it is sustained, the WASHCOM chairman said concrete arrangement had been made where each benefitting household contributes a little amount of money for general upkeep of the facility. “We collect five Naira for every bucket or jerry can fetched and through this initiative we were able to generate adequate funds which we use in carrying out some repairs and maintenance of the facility when the need arises, including replacement of switches and broken taps”.
Mallam Shafi’u confirmed that the committee had a total of over N221,000 in its bank account as at the time of our visit. In addition, he said, the benefit even went beyond maintaining the borehole as the money is also being used to take care of some other expenditures including purchase of fuel for the power generator of the mosque in the community as well as assisting in the medication of some ailing people.
According to him, plans are underway to expand the water supply project to other parts of the community by constructing another borehole as the revenue generation drive of the WASHCOM continues to improve.
Similarly, the school enrolment and retention within the community has improved courtesy of the SURWASH intervention in Turawa community. Aisha Ahmed, a Junior secondary school student said “Before, we used to encounter disruptions in school lessons as we had to wake up in the morning and go out looking for water before going to school, which usually made us to arrive late to the school, but now we no longer experience that situation with the availability of the water”.
The respondents therefore expressed happiness with the intervention of SURWASH program and commended all the stakeholders particularly the World Bank and the state government and promised to ensure maintenance of the facility always to sustain the gains..
Story By Abubakar Abdullahi
Communication Officer,
Katsina State RUWASSA