Closer to Home

For years, collecting water shaped every part of Shega Beyene's day. 

Before sunrise, at 4 a.m., she would leave home and walk for an hour to reach the nearest water point in a neighbouring town. The journey was demanding, but for Shega, a mother of five, it was a sacrifice she made to help ensure her children could stay in school. 

"I didn't want my children to be late for school or miss classes, so I always fetched the water myself," she says. 

But the long walk was only the beginning. After arriving, she often faced long queues and the uncertainty of whether water would be available. 

"Sometimes there would be a long queue, or there would be no water," Shega recalls. "We would have to ask our neighbours if they had water." 

Even when water was available, getting it home remained a challenge. Families often had to pay for a donkey cart or motorcycle to transport it, or wait until one became available. To make their limited supply last, they collected water only every other day. 

Today, those daily struggles are largely behind them. 

A solarized water system, funded by the Ethiopian Humanitarian Fund and implemented by UNICEF, is providing clean, reliable drinking water to residents of Siraro Woreda in Ethiopia's Oromia Region. 

"Now we have access to water every day, and it is very close to us," Shega says. "We no longer have to travel those long, difficult roads at 4 a.m." With clean water nearby, her family no longer has to plan their days around collecting water and has a reliable supply for drinking and everyday needs. "This new access to water has given me and my children peace of mind," she says. 

Among those benefiting is 9th-grade student Hamzia Kedir, who remembers the burden water collection placed on her education. 

Hamzia and her siblings took turns fetching water. Before dawn, they would walk for about an hour to the nearest town with a functioning water point. 

"The roads can be scary at that time," she says. "Sometimes the journey would take longer, and I would miss school. Now, the water point is close to my house. I don't have to make those dangerous trips anymore, and I always get to school on time." 

For families across Siraro, access to safe water means more than having water nearby. It means children can focus on learning, parents can devote more time to other responsibilities, and communities no longer have to begin their day with an exhausting search for one of life's most basic necessities. 

In Siraro, solarized water systems funded by the Ethiopia Humanitarian Fund and implemented by UNICEF are providing a reliable source of clean drinking water for Shega, Hamzia, and more than 25,000 other residents, giving families more time for school, work and daily life.