Amina’s 11-year-old daughter, Raja, enjoys having clean water in the tap in her home in An Nuwei’ma.
Living in the desert can be harsh and made more difficult by checkpoints and road blocks. But An Nuwei’ma, just outside Jericho, is luckier than most of the nearby desert villages. It has water.
Spring water is channeled to the village and the fertile fields through open canals, which presents two problems. The water is open to contamination by both man and creature, causing disease and suffering. And, a lot of the water flowing through the open canals is lost to evaporation under the hot, dry desert sun. As much as 40% of the water evaporates before reaching the end users.
Thanks to a USAID-funded project, ANERA has enclosed and buried the water pipe network to the benefit An Nuwei’ma’s 2,000 residents who no longer have to drink unhealthy water.
Amina, a mother of eight, had been feeling ill for quite a while, and blamed the drinking water from the open canal. Now, she sighs with relief as she sees clean water flowing from the taps in her kitchen and bathroom. Her sons assure her the new water is much better and she can see that it is.
More than 5,000 meters of water pipes and a water pump were installed under the project that was funded by the Emergency Water and Sanitation (EWAS) program.
