WaterAid photo gallery – Pakistan: Troubled waters

Ayesha Javed, Communications Coordinator at WaterAid Pakistan, visited Muzaffargarh district in Punjab towards the end of 2012. In her photo gallery

Ayesha shows us the context in which vital projects for the HSBC Water Programme are taking shape.

In Kot Adu village I met Fatima, who told me that due to lack of clean water and sanitation children in the area suffer from acute diarrhoea, respiratory infections and skin diseases. In Pakistan, 46,000 children die every year from diarrhoea-related diseases.

Pakistan is a geographically diverse country, ranging from arid deserts to remote mountainous regions. Vast flood plains present high risks of flooding across much of the country. In 2010, extreme flooding affected 20 million people, around one in ten of the total population.

In flood-prone Muzaffargarh district, the presence of naturally occurring arsenic has compelled some families to migrate in search of safe drinking water.

Pakistan aspires to be one of the big economies of the future, yet lack of basic safe water and sanitation services costs the economy billions of dollars every year in health expenses, lost earnings and other impacts.

The HSBC Water Programme will benefit 500 rural communities in Muzaffargarh that are in great need of safe water, sanitation and hygiene.

Local staff are mobilising hundreds of communities to achieve Open Defecation Free (ODF) status through a Community-led Total Sanitation approach (CLTS). At the heart of CLTS lies the understanding that merely providing toilets does not guarantee their use, nor result in improved sanitation and hygiene.

Hygiene sessions are being conducted with women and children, to help explain the cause of some of their health problems and what preventative measures can be taken. In many sessions cultural taboos such as menstruation can be discussed openly – often for the first time.

A local resident was proud to show me a latrine he constructed after a training session with a local mason, organised by our local partner AGHAE. The latrine is now used by three families.

Water, sanitation and hygiene programmes have already started in schools, like this one in Muzaffargarh.

WaterAid projects in Pakistan, with the support of the HSBC Water Programme, aim to reach over 370,000 people with safe water and over 600,000 people with sanitation over the next five years.

All photos WaterAid/ Ayesha Javed.