Mrs ‘Maphoka Chake lives with her husband and three children in the small rural village of Mohonyeling in the Lesotho Highlands. Her village is often cut off by the local river after heavy rains or snow. Families walk or use donkeys to get down the mountain and cross the river to access the road that takes them to the town centre some 25km away. This requires leaving early in the morning and returning late in the evening.

Seasonal springs are the main source of water in this area. For the households in Mohonyeling, water was accessed from a muddy stream above the village where the women collected and transported water in buckets to their households. Through support from Lesotho Red Cross Society’s (LRCS) WASH Promotion Interventions for Rural Communities, funded by CS-WASH, a water system was recently constructed providing three tap stands in the village and a fourth in the school. These stands now bring clean water closer to the 20 households and 165 people of Mohonyeling.  

Mrs Chake was nominated by her community to be trained as the Water Minder for the new system as she is respected and trusted to apply the training and protect the community’s ongoing access to safe water. She was motivated to undertake the Water Minder training as she understands the need for better hygiene and safe water in terms of improving people’s health and livelihood.

Mrs Chake left school after completing her primary education but has continued to learn and seek new skills and has worked as a volunteer teacher at the local school. She said, “I’m very delighted to have been awarded this position of Water Minder. It came in a moment whereby I was willing to volunteer in any community-serving activity but I didn’t have any idea which activity.”

The Water Minder role works closely with the Water Committee to regularly check the yield of the springs, operations of the system, buy parts and carry out minor repairs as required. To support her in this role, LRCS provided her with on-the-job training. Mrs Chake worked alongside the contractors constructing the new water system, providing her with an understanding of the design of the system, the level of water flow necessary and the maintenance requirements.

Mrs Chake says she “looks forward to helping improve my community’s access to clean and easily available water, which will also help households be hygienic and healthy.”

“Now that the construction of the water system has been completed, I’m going to ensure that my community drink clean, safe water at all times by ensuring that there are no leakages on the system, and that we clean the system regularly or at the right interval.”