BY LORETTA B MANELE

A small-scale dam was built in Sughu community, Wanderer Bay, West Guadalcanal in 2009 by World Vision, easing access to water supply for people of Sughu.

But today, as the population increases over the years, with a greater number of households in the community, getting access to water through standpipes is now an issue.

Joshua Bulolo from Sughu, said the small-scale dam built far from the village was constructed along with a tank from which water is supplied to the village through standpipes.

At the time, standpipes located in the village prior to being built were estimated to be one per 5 households.

He stressed that as there are more people in the community than before, people are finding it hard to share water, especially when there are less than 10 standpipes in the community of more than 10 households.

This has caused the people of Sughu to experience shortage of water more especially because some people have resorted to creating their own water connections, causing disruption in the flow of water supply.

The small dam since being built has not been maintained as well and one of two pipes from the dam leading to the tank for water supply to the village was broken from flooding.

“The flooding was so strong it broke one of the pipes at the dam so the broken pipe needs to be changed,” said Bulolo.

He pointed out that there should be a full rehabilitation of the whole water supply system which includes the small dam, tank, pipes, and standpipes.

“What should be done as well is recalculation of how many households there are in the community at present to know how big the dam should be to provide more water for the community.

“There should also be an increase in the size of the storage tank so that it has enough water to supply people of the community,” he said.

Bulolo mentioned that the dam also needs to reconstructed.

He emphasised that no maintenance of the water supply system has been done, hence the challenge of water supply usage in the village.

Bulolo said although the community does not have enough money to do this, they should work together for a start, adding that assistance from the government and aid donors would greatly assist them in curbing this challenge.

Women and young girls of Sughu who use water more often everyday than everyone else are also feeling the impact of unequal access to water supply.

Clera, a young woman from the community shared her experience about this.

“We use the water supply to prepare food, for drinking, washing cooking utensils, to bathe and to wash clothes,” she said.

Clera added that the issue of not having enough standpipes is that when they go to fetch water to drink, or bring their clothes to wash them or when they go to bathe, they have to wait because people are already at the standpipe.

“This affects us women and girls, because everyday we have different tasks to do which all involves the use of water.

“So, when we go to use water from the standpipe but it is already occupied, we have to wait which means we will delay whatever task we had planned to do throughout the day” she stressed.

Like Bulolo, Clera also concurrs to the fact that the growing population in their community has impacted access and use of water from the now limited standpipes they have.

“So, we need more standpipes,” she said.

*Reporting for this story was supported by Pacific Media Assistance Scheme (PACMAS)

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