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REGIONAL INITIATIVES
Initiatives and success stories, best practices
South
Asia
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TAKING MATTERS INTO HER
OWN HANDS
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Bu
Eroh, a 50-year old woman from a small village in Indonesia, almost
single-handedly undertook the manual construction of a conduit to bring
water from a spring to her village 4,5kilometres away.
There was a severe water shortage in her village. Without an adequate
water supply, Bu Eroh could only plant cassava and sweet potatoes on her
one-half hectare dryland plot. She was the family breadwinner for three
children and an invalid husband.
In her wanderings to gather mushrooms, Bu Eroh found a spring at a
distance of about 20 metres from her home (a 2-hour walk). Instinct told
her that if a conduit could be constructed, she could divert some of the
water to her field. With enough water, she could grow rice.
To divert the water from its source, she had to cut through 45 metres
of mountain rock. In doing so, she had to anchor herself on a steep
sandstone slope, by tying one end of a rope to a tree at the top of the
cliff, and strapping the other end of the rope to her waist. If the rope
broke, it could mean a 17- metre drop into the valley but she braved it!
And today she happily grows rice on her land.
Source: The Local Decade: Men, Women and Agencies in Water Development,
IRC, Netherlands, 1984
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