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Welcome to SI's special SoroptiVoice blog series, bringing you stories from Papua New Guinea, where this year's President's December 10th Appeal is taking place.  These stories paint a poignant picture of what life is like for women in PNG, with a focus on pregnancy and mothers.  There are many SI activities and materials for International Human Rights Day & this year's SI focus on women's right to safe motherhood, in particular access to skilled birth attendants.  Please explore our website and social media sites to learn more and to find out how you can take action too!  

The Water Fetchers

Every day, Serah can be found at the river fetching her family’s water supply.  Fortunately for her, it will only be a short walk back to her house because she must carry the water.  Serah is also fortunate that the river has a gravel bed because having access to the gravel enables her to build a simple water filtration system.  Working in a shallow part of the river, Serah scoops out the gravel, gradually building a retaining wall to make a water filled, oval-shaped enclosure.   She packs big rocks and larger amounts of gravel at one end of the oval to divert the flow of water to either side of the hole.

All this takes time and effort under the blazing sun, but when Serah is satisfied, she takes a pan and scoops out the water that is in the hole and discards it.  As water seeps up through the gravel, she continues to scoop it out until she is satisfied with its quality.  This ancient method of filtration will remove the solid waste and many of the bugs in the water and will ensure that her family will be affected less by any remaining impurities.   While Serah works, other women wash their dishes, a mother washes a toddler and children chase small fish with a net.  Any men who are around gather together further down the river by the bridge.

Throughout these rural areas women and children are the traditional water fetchers.  They may need to walk much longer distances to do the same daily chore as Serah, and may even repeat the journey several times a day.  These women, like their rural sisters in many developing countries, can only dream of the clean water and sanitation that is taken for granted in the developed world.

Although there are abundant water resources in Papua New Guinea, few rural families, who make up over 80% of the population, have access to an improved water supply. Fewer than this have water piped directly into their houses.  Contaminated drinking water and lack of proper sanitation contribute to water borne diarrhoeal diseases, one of the leading causes of preventable deaths in the country.  There is no National policy on water and sanitation in Papua New Guinea and the disparity in urban and rural sanitation coverage remains daunting.  It is hard to see how the achievement of environmental sustainability, Millennium Development Goal 7, can be reached by 2015.