Safe water day and night
"If they caught me collecting during the day they would fine me."
In Cachona, one public tap served the whole community, and hauling water from it more than once during the day was forbidden. So Isidiana went at night. “If they caught me collecting during the day they would fine me,” she says. “It was as if it were stolen.”
Isidiana was not a thief, but to get enough water for her family to survive, she often did revisit the community well during the night to collect just a little more so she could wash her family's clothing and bathe her daughters for school.
Isidiana and her husband cherish the time they get to spend with their three daughters; the eldest is now in high school and the twins are in primary school.
"My little girls would say, ‘Mommy, the sink?’…And there was no sink.”
She carried four or five buckets a hundred meters uphill then washed clothes quickly, and whatever was left, her family used to bathe. She remembers the struggles, “My little girl would say, ‘Mommy, the sink?’…And there was no sink.”
When a new community president proposed piping water up from a spring below, Isidiana did not believe the project would ever happen. For about six months residents, including Isidiana’s husband, worked to build a reservoir and a pump that could supply water to the whole community.
Once the project was complete, the community agreed to establish a connection fee to cover the costs of construction. The connection fee was around 6,000 soles. Isidiana did not have these funds but through the work of Water.org and our local financial partners, she quickly learned of an affordable way to get access to them. Caja Cusco approved Isidiana right away for a water and sanitation loan that could cover the connection fee and give Isidiana enough to construct a bathroom on her property.
“I have a bathroom, I have water, I am at peace.”
Today a bathroom with a shower stands where the pit toilet used to be, and a new storage tank carries water to the family’s home where Isidiana also has a sink for cooking and a washing machine to keep her family’s clothing clean.
With these solutions in place Isidiana shared with gratitude, “I have a bathroom, I have water, I am at peace.”
Across Peru, 6.4 million people have gained safe water or sanitation through loans like hers, and because 98 percent of those loans are repaid, the same capital reaches the next family in need. Learn more about how small loans for water and sanitation make a big impact in Peru and around the world.
