Along with providing water, H2O Wheels are also financially and socially empowering the women of Tharparkar.
Dawn.com
March 22, 2024
In the barren desert of Tharpakar, where desolate dunes spread across thousands of miles and living beings are a sight for sore eyes, Issiya Begum walks five kilometres, barefoot, every day to fetch water.
The water, which is most often substituted with life, has given her a lifelong disability — a condition where her back is permanently bent. The incident occurred some years back when Issiya Begum was transporting water-filled clay pots from the nearby well to her home.
Like other Thari women, Issiya too is in charge of fetching water for her house. But one day, her frail back couldn’t bear the burden any more and caved in forever. That did not stop her from “fulfilling her responsibility” though, and the arduous journeys continue day in and day out.
Studies show that 72 per cent of women across Pakistan — especially in rural areas — are responsible for carrying household water and spend nearly three-fourths of their day in the exercise. The almost nine-hour-long job, without a single day off, not only affects the livelihood of these women but also their mental and physical health.
For young girls, these gender-bound responsibilities snatch their already dwindling chance at education. However, the women of Thar and other areas that stand in the face of a water crisis don’t have a choice and they have come to terms with it — after all, water is life.
But when Nida Sheikh, a behavioural science graduate and the chief executive officer of Tayaba Organisation, visited the area, the “inhumane practice” of fetching water deeply disturbed her and prompted her to transform adversity into an opportunity.
Water on wheels
The first time Sheikh visited rural Sindh and Punjab was for a project on female entrepreneurship. But by the end of the trip, she had identified a pattern — most women were unable to even take a nap or socialise in the quest for water.
“In most of these areas, I came across marginalised women who were walking for kilometres and spending hours only to fetch a basic need,” she told Dawn.com. “Even when they reach their destination, these women have to pull out water from 200-250 meter deep wells and then carry those pots back home.
“Some days, they make multiple such journeys in a day … it is unimaginable, the toll this entire process takes on their minds and bodies,” said Sheikh. “It saddened me to realise that while I took clean water for granted, women in my own country struggled daily for water collection.”
After each visit, she would come back home even more unsettled. And then, she met Bilal Bin Saqib, a classmate who had laid the foundation of the Tayaba Organisation. He shared with her the innovative concept of water barrels he had encountered during his travels in Africa and discussed the endeavour of replicating a similar solution to ease the transportation struggles of millions in Pakistan.
After several prototypes and prolonged interaction with locals, the Tayaba Organisation, a non-profit organisation, invented the H2O or “Help 2 Others” Wheel — a water-carrying device that removes the burden from the women’s shoulders.
