WOMENWATERWORK

Azmatun (18), Saipur Maafi

I studied till the 8th standard, but had to give up on education because we did not have access to water. Water is required for drinking, cooking, household chores, as well as for the buffaloes. Every morning I have to walk miles to the river to fetch water. It takes close to an hour to reach the river and almost two hours to come back with water. Between morning and evening, I make several such rounds to the river for water. It takes up my entire day, leaving no time to go to school.

Hand pumps aren't a reliable option. There are always long queues at the few hand pumps that are here. To make things worse, they run dry after every few buckets. We have to wait a few minutes for water levels to recover. This ends up testing the patience of people standing in queues. Often arguments and fights break out over who will fill water first. And all this is despite the fact that water from these hand pumps is salty and hence mostly undrinkable.

The village Pradhan (head of the village) refuses to help in finding a solution. There are times when we have to travel to neighbouring villages for sweet water. But sometimes even they refuse to give us water. Our health has suffered due to impurities in the river water. The river water isn't clean, as cattle bathe in it. We often deal with cough, cold, fever and stomach ailments. This daily struggle for water, led to my studies getting discontinued. Sometimes I dream, if I had continued going to school, I too could have become a doctor or a teacher. I too could have made a difference in the lives of others.

Every year, especially during the summers, women and young girls of villages from the Tikamgarh district travel for about 1 to 3 km to fetch water for their households. The issue of water scarcity is widespread in India which most adversely affects the drought prone districts such as Vidharbha in Maharashtra, Tikamgarh in Madhya Pradesh and many others. As the issue of water unavailability increases to other areas of the country, most issues related to the problem of water do not get reported on or the attention it requires. Why is it that everywhere you go, in rural parts of the country, one always finds a woman at the source of water, fetching water? What is this relationship that a woman plays with water and the issue that it portrays? To explore these questions and to shed some light on an unreported issue of water scarcity and the social discrimination that becomes a part of it, I decided to use the medium of a camera and further research with the help of local women to establish a new narrative around water, women and work.

Dehne village, situated deep inside Western Maharashtra in Thane district is a popular base village for several treks in the Sahyadris. The agrarian village has a robust rural tourism model put in place by a social enterprise. This is why the village is relatively wealthy and also has good rainfall. During the monsoon season, Dehne, surrounded by lush rainfed rivers, becomes the land of a thousand waterfalls. Yet the village lacks a few basic amenities – road connectivity, health centres and efficient water pipe connections. Its women travel to a well located at the centre of the village or to the river that flows on its outskirts.

But several women don't seem to mind carrying pots of water on their heads and by their waist.

"It's a tradition," they say. But is this tradition bound to change anytime soon?

In many parts of the world, fetching water is mainly considered a job for women and children. It is well known, that this places a huge physical burden on them. The photo-story reveals how cultural norms of Kapau, Western Province of Zambia, influence water fetching activity, making it into a "trivial" chore delegated only to women and children. When such water infrastructure is inadequate, the human body becomes part of the water delivery service, reducing them to 'living pipes'. The following photo essay elucidates this case.

The Walk

Even if the distance to the water point could be relatively short, the frequency to collect, number of buckets to carry, weight of the filled bucket, and the path itself, makes the walk excruciating. In a few cases, women walk for 30 minutes from their homes to the water point and back, to fill and carry 10 buckets – which in total can take about 5 hours if they do not have help. Hot sand and thorns on the paths make these walks uncomfortable. However, they also mentioned that, with the right company, a long walk for water can be filled with laughter, conversation and sharing of wild berries.

Cultural Ramifications

When inquired about the reason of carrying out the chore, the most common answer would be, "because it is a woman's job!" This job allocation stems from gendered norms engrained in the culture. These are often defined in the local customs; in Kapau it was the Lozi culture that dictated the behavioural standards for men, women and children. One of such customs is the 'Lobola' (bride price/dowry) practice. Before getting married, the man pays the negotiated amount in the form of money or cows to the woman's parents as a token of gratitude for raising their daughter. For most men in Kapau, they interpret this as a means of enforcing authority on the woman as she has been bought by him. It is therefore now the wife’s duty to perform demanding domestic chores.

Pain due to lifting

When placed on top of the head, the filled water buckets are more balanced and easier to carry. But, without help, lifting the buckets alone to carry them on one's head can be difficult for women of various ages, and may cause severe injuries. Complaining of body pain from carrying buckets is sometimes considered as a failure to keep one's marriage vows in their culture. This may lead to a divorce. This is one of the reasons why many women do not explicitly voice their complaints.

The liabilities (i)

When the bore-well is far from home, water-dependent chores like washing clothes or utensils, are usually done at the well site, causing women to remain outdoors for longer period of time. Multi-tasking with children and domestic duties in these conditions can be a real challenge for the mothers. Others at the bore well, such as young single women, help to care for the young children while their mothers are working. This way, the bore-well become a place for socialising and baby-sitting.

The liabilities (ii)

The plights faced by different women are not the same. The specific roles and responsibilities of each woman makes their suffering unique. One group that stood out was the group of 'mothers'. Having to assume the two roles of a water carrier and a mother, simultaneously takes a toll on their body. This picture shows a mother who is carrying a 20 litre bucket while caring for her children at the same time. She evidently risks her knees, joints and muscles to injuries as she has to balance the weight of the water-filled bucket over her head.

Women carrying water containers in one hand and holding their infant child from the other, hung by the waist, was the most common visual I came across as I travelled in the tribal regions of Gaya district. Sans basic amenities like roads, electricity or water supply these people have stood against all odds. They dug wells, not just a couple, but so many that all the Tolas (hamlets) have sufficient water. A handful of Tolas that have government hand pumps are either not functional or turn dry in summer. Thus, the demand for water not just for drinking, washing but even for irrigation is met by wells that are maintained by these tribal men and women.

All women, young and old had a peculiar way of fetching water from the wells, unlike anything that I have witnessed in other regions which have hand-pumps and proper roads to aid the worker. These women fill buckets from deep wells and carry them on their heads meanwhile holding the child on their back all along. In all the Tolas which are fully dependent on wells, these are largely dug by men, but in Salariya Tand of village Alakdiha, the wells have been completely dug by women of the Tolas.

Their self-reliance sets a powerful example for communities, but it also exposes many failures of the government and society as a whole to provide minimal respectable living conditions in the form of drinking water, proper roads or a safe environment. Education is another important aspect of existence; a small school was constructed however, it is not currently functional since many people had to migrate for seeking employment opportunities. The constant fear of forest officials and even local goons is most common. At one such occasion I had a small encounter to witness what these people go through and was fortunate enough to have numbers in my support.

As a community they are mostly self-sustaining, they grow their own food and labour themselves for all sorts of work. Few who have received elementary education face challenges in pursuing higher studies due to lack of Schedule Tribe reservation certification, an important area where our administration needs to look back and secure those who come under this category. Local NGOs have been trying to raise these issues as well as have helped in the past by making sure that adivasis (tribals) have identity cards. Those with their certified identification back in 2014 elections, voted for the first time and in a way celebrated their independence.

This tribal population even without the most elementary comforts of daily life continues to carve an existence that is highly inspiring. Water, despite being a missing block in terms of its availability, still nevertheless becomes a binding factor where men and women of the household work for it together, against all odds.

Women in the tribal villages of Gaya, Bihar walk for miles several times a day to collect water from sources like dug wells. RupaDevi's 18-months-old daughter looks on as she is tied to her mother's back who is walking back to the village after collecting water. A regular sight in these villages where mothers have to fetch water but can't leave young children unattended at home. The men in most families are either work in the farms or as labourers in other towns and cities.

Chandu Devi and Shalgi Devi both carrying their babies at the well in Alakdiha village in Gaya district, Bihar. Often, women endanger their lives and the lives of the babies with the fear of falling into the well as they precariously balance themselves on logs to pull up water from the well. A long walk through the jungle is the only way to reach this isolated tribal community. Women spend hours and walk miles every day to collect water from water sources like these.

Gasni Devi (61) collects water from the dug well in KathautiyaKewal village in Gaya district, Bihar. She lives with her husband in the village. The well is more than half a kilometre away from her house and the walk to the well for basic daily needs several times a day tires her. The area near the well is slippery and at her age while pulling the water and carrying it back, she has to be cautious to not slip or fall.

A drop of water held on precariously to the edge of the tap, about to fall way down. It was the last drop after water supply shut down on a hot sunny, blustery day. Maya walked purposefully, a hint of uneasiness in her hurry to reach the only public tap for miles and miles around. She was late, very late. The bucket and bottles in her hands, rattled with a dull ringing sound as her pace picked up. She had overslept. As she turned around the corner, she drew a sharp intake of breath, there was nobody there! No lines, no shouting, no quarrels. The tap stood solitary, the long pipe glistening as the sun tried to evaporate the last drop hanging on for dear life.

Maya was heart-broken. What would she do now? Where would she go for water? She stood in front of the tap on wet sodden earth, trampled by dozens of feet early on during the day. Tears welled up in her eyes. They fell down on her cheeks, the last drop of water did too, into the bricked abyss below, as if on cue. The tenacity of holding on to something or some hope giving way to helplessness.

"Adze ato mani" (meaning something has falling into my eyes) is the name of the white cloth. "Adze ato mani" is an Akan (Ghanaian) proverb which also means a loss of a relative; the death of a husband, wife, child or a loved one. Gradually, a lot of things are happening which are leading to a loss of cultural identity in many parts of Africa where the loss of a husband can lead to the social denialof a woman from working, cooking and even bathing in water. A widow loses the right of existence - this is the expression of the artist performance and installations.

Women and girls play key roles in obtaining and managing water in the world. Imagine going through the day without access to clean, safe water in your home for drinking, cooking, washing. Water, a human right, is critical for human survival and development.

most part of Africa, collecting water takes time. In order to get water for drinking, bathing, cooking and other household needs, millions of women and girls spend hours every day traveling to water sources to get some for their family. The artist in performance showcases the role of woman in using water in society.

Gender equality is essential to enable women and men to participate equally in society and in the economy. Significant progress has been made in closing gender gaps in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, despite gains, African women continue to face some grim facts. Girls are still much less likely than boys to benefit from a secondary education. Women and girls often have little influence over resources and norms, and face restrictions on what jobs are appropriate for women, thus limiting their earning potential in agriculture, enterprise or the labor market more widely. The artist attempts to show gender loss of identity, through performance, blurring distinctions between genders.

Rapar block in Kutch District is considered to be one of the most arid zones of India. There are 97 villages and 120 vandhs (hamlets) registered in the official records of the government. Apart from this, there are another 120 vandhs which do not have any official registration. Therefore the community living in it is not getting enough support from the government. Rapar block is a dry, saline, arid zone – also known as the dark zone since the groundwater extraction is as high as 90 - 100%. The ground is saline, due to its closeness to the desert. The environmental conditions are extreme from 47 degree Celsius in summer to 6 to 7 degree Celsius in winter

In terms of water resources development too, the priority in this millennia has been for mega projects, with complete neglect of local, community driven efforts like well-recharging, check dams, dug wells, lakes, step wells and wetlands. The biggest casualty of dominant priorities for mega projects and the simultaneous neglect of local water systems is groundwater, the invisible water bank that we can fall back on when rains fail. In that sense, sustainable groundwater, recharged by living local water systems is the real water lifeline. These series of photographs are captured from various villages of Rapar, Bhachau and Nakhatrana block of Kutch District, where Samerth is working in developing water resources with community participation.

For more than two decades, the Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM) has been working to negotiate equitable access to water for productive purposes for women, landless communities and other marginalised groups in drought-prone areas of Maharashtra, western India. The process has included capacity building for women farmers to facilitate their participation in community based water user associations for irrigation management. Typically, participation is contingent on land ownership – and women own less than 10 percent of cultivable land in India. Through women-led sustainable and innovative agricultural interventions, policy advocacy and alliance-building, SOPPECOM and its partners have been able to negotiate space for women in water governance at multiple levels.

Working since the early 1980s in drought prone areas of coastal Gujarat, Utthan, which means upliftment in Hindi, has considerable experiences in developing gender-sensitive institutional mechanisms and alternative, low-cost WASH technologies. Through promotion of women's decision making in Village Water Committees it has facilitated gender-awarewater and sanitation planning. Behavioural change efforts have led to the adoption of appropriate technologies and changes in work burden sharing between men and women. Numerous women are leading the way in the use of water saving technologies and less water-intensive crops. Additionally, women in fishing communities have been helped bythe simple use of umbrellas, weighing scales and proper storage vessels when they are selling fish in local markets.

This story comes from an urban slum called Purvideen Khera in Lucknow – a poor settlement of around 360 households, situated next to Haider canal – that has now developed into a drain thanks to the unplanned urbanization in the city.

"I enjoy doing all my household chores now!" exclaimed an enthusiastic Gudiya Gautam as she fills up her buckets smiling ear to ear and posing for me. For the well to do it might just be a very normal liquid pouring out of the taps but think of those who have to walk miles to reach to a single water source where there are already many people queuing up for that elixir. What's even worse is the fact that the laborious task of carrying water to and fro is the responsibility of the women of the family, who without fail wake up early everyday for this drudgery, as they are the ones who use water for nearly every household chore. Gautam adds on that with accessibility to water she is able to save upon some time which she utilizes in resting or engaging in embroidery work, earning additional income for her family.

Preeto's lean body is discernable from a distance. The green mulmul (thin cotton) dupatta (scarf) she is wearing is making her standout on the dusky pathway. The dupatta, completely drenched with sweat today, once used to be the most prized possession of her wedding trousseau but today, the big round mirrors sewn on its edges seem to have turned against her, burning holes in her skin. The shade of sparse wild Keekars on the way is too measly to provide any respite from the angry sun. Her feet are tired and body weary, but she has to walk half a mile more to reach home. She started at dawn right after making tea for Gurbacchan and now the sun is overhead. So many household chores are yet to be done… cooking, washing utensils and clothes. The three brass pots on her head seem to be getting heavier with each additional step and each additional thought, analogous to trajectory of life which gets more and more heavy with each passing year and each dying dream.

Two years back when she entered her husband's home as a bride, life was so crisp and fresh. The fragrant dreams used to suck the drudgery out of household chores. Work was never an issue for her, since she grew up in the absence of a mother and unlike her maiden home, the proximity of the village pond to her marital house made her task of carrying water for household needs easy.

Last year when that pond was acquired by a famous shoe company for setting up a factory with the promise of providing employment to all members of the village, she, like all her neighbours, was bursting with happiness. Steady employment for Gurbacchan could mean so many things, new walking stick for her father-in-law, fresh chappar on her hut, additional pots to store water and grains, gleaming new bells for Kali the goat and so on.

The shoe factory kept the promise and provided employment to unemployed youth including Gurbacchan at a good salary. Her household was thriving now with new bells for Kali, new chappar for hut, a walking stick for her father-in-law, a new trunk for keeping her clothes and sparkling pots for storing water and grains. Life seemed happy but for two things. The constant stench of the leather emanating from Gurbacchan's body made her nights sleepless and the toil of carrying water from the distant pond on the edge of the adjacent village, twice each day, left her restless.

Prosperity is preferable to poverty, but prosperity at what cost and for whom. Preeto is now wondering if she should be happy about Gurbacchan's employment or feel sad about her new drudgery which is parching both her soul and her throat.

Busy in her thoughts, she enters the door of her house, keeps the pot down near the window sill, pours some water in a well-scrubbed shining brass tumbler and drinks it in a single gulp. If not the fire of her soul at least the thirst of her throat could still be quenched.

Budharwati Devi (30), Dindori, Madhya Pradesh

When Budharwati Devi (30) lost her husband a few years ago, she was left behind to look after her three children. Bhudarwati's bright smile doesn't let anyone know what all she has been through. Until a year ago, Bhudarwati and most of the villagers of Pondi village in Dindori, Madhya Pradesh made peace with the fact that such sudden deaths happen due to some super natural powers or evil spirit of a deceased family member. "He [my husband] was often down with an upset stomach or vomiting. He could hardly digest any food… We all thought that he is unwell due to some higher power," shares Bhudarwati shyly. "However, it was much later that we understood the reason behind these deaths," she adds. Bhudarwati is not the first or the only one to go through this ordeal. Many others in the village also claim that it was a common sight to see family members fall sick with diarrhoea and then lose their lives. With the health centres at a distance, they would often try to cure their problems with home remedies.

In 2005, Bhudarwati got married and came to Pondi village. Belonging to the Baiga tribe, Bhudarwati's hands and legs are all covered with the traditional tattoos. "These tattoos are our identity. They are painful, but still they are our only form of identity as a tribe and it also shows how strong a woman is," she says.

Pondi village in Dindori is home to over a hundred Baiga families. Agriculture and forest are the two main sources of income for them. Located in the heart of a lush green forest, the houses are scattered over an area that is uphill. Water has always been a concern for the community as they barely use the water from wells and traditionally believed that water that flows is always pure to drink. Thus, they collected water from the two natural spring at the hill nearby. The walk to the spring was also a tiring one. Women had to walk through the forest uphill and downhill several times a day; a total distance of about a kilometre [one-way] for each trip to the spring.

What the community wanted was not just water supply near each household, but also a filtration technique that would provide access to clean water.

As a first step, a Jal Prabandhan Samiti (water management committee) was set up in the village. Twelve men and women from the village were encouraged to join the committee to ensure long lasting solutions for their water problems. Bhudarwati, an active member of the committee was dedicated towards the cause, and was hence nominated as the head of the committee. She and the other members attended various training sessions on testing of water, handling water collected from the source and storing it at home, as well as maintenance of water sources and infrastructure.

With regular meetings and discussions, Bhudarwati and the committee along with WaterAid and its partner devised a solution for their water problems - a slow sand water filter. Water from the two springs was collected in a storage-cum-filtration tank with the help of pipelines. This tank had five chambers filled with sand, gravel, charcoal and net in different chambers. As the village is located on the foot of the hill, the system works on gravity. The chambers are connected with each other through small openings at different heights so that water is passed through each chamber through gravity and not electricity. The water gets filtered in the process and is connected with stand posts [water outlets] near each household; one stand post for about 4-5 houses. This has led to supply of clean water at the household level with a drastic decrease in the time to collect water.

The community soon realised the difference in their health condition on using this filtered water. Fewer children complained of stomach ache as compared to the earlier times.

Today, Bhudarwati and the committee meet once a week to discuss if there is any problem in maintaining the water filtration plant. The community also engages with them to seek solutions together as most of them of suffered from the various implications of accessing unclean water.

"My husband wouldn't have fallen ill if at all he or any of us knew that the water was the main reason. I wish I knew about all this, he would be with us and I wouldn't have to depend on my in-laws for every small little thing."

Surdai Majhi from Sindhipadar village in Kalahandi district of Odisha waits after feeding the fish in the pond. She walks down from her house, atop a hill, where she lives with her farmer son, everyday to care for the pond and the fish that brings livelihood to her family. Two decades ago, the land around her house was barren without trees or vegetation. Watershed work initiated by Gram Vikas has changed her family and the village. Today, she lives to tell the story of regenerating forests and bringing new life to the land and her community through her water work.

The images are from the project Mitti, Paani, Kahaani in a village called Gelawas, near Jodhpur, in Rajasthan.

Here, the climate is dry, means of water are scarce, dried ponds act as cricket playgrounds in wait of the rain to quench their thirst, utensils are cleaned with ash and sand, homes try to harvest rainwater beneath their courtyard, young menfolk from most homes have migrated to cities like Bangalore, in search of jobs or to open a shop.

This leaves the womenfolk alone with their children, and the older generation of whom the men spend most of their time drinking hukkah and women taking care of the house. There is a carpenter, potter, goldsmith, ironsmith but very few farmers.

Such is the story of this dry, thirsty land….where I came to work on a 14 days international art residency programme. Here, I worked with the women and children using local materials such as broken earthen pots to raise awareness about water scarcity, sustainability, and rich cultural heritage, traditional practices through installations, exhibitions, art, music dance, painting and the celebration of life.