Visiting a hand dug well in Ethiopia from Water.org
As part of our ongoing monitoring and partner work, a field team from Water.org visited remote villages in rural Tigray, Ethiopia in April 2009. As part of this trip, we wanted to document the real-life struggles of water collection in the region.
“44 Pounds” is a feature-length video (~1hr, 20min) that documents some of a women’s morning work in Ethiopia. The video opens with Birhane cleaning the courtyard of her home which includes repurposing livestock manure for cooking fuel. After that, and just as the sun is rising, she leaves to collect water at a hand-dug well.
Her village is 1.7miles (~2.7k) from the open well featured in the video and the journey took approximately 30 minutes. Water collection at the water point took another 30 or so minutes as the women do this daily task together as a group. The return trip took closer to 35 minutes given the added weight of a loaded gerry can of water — which weighs 44 pounds.
It should also be noted, her village does this water collection twice a day. The water they collect is used for drinking, cooking, cleaning, and livestock health.
Production of this video was made possible by the ongoing support of the Open Square Foundation.
