Chili, cabbage and crisp vegetables are standing beautifully today in the large kitchen garden at the little orange house in the village of Yakhchisor, in the middle of Tajikistan’s wild mountains. In front of the house stands the village’s water point, built by Mission Øst to replace the brown, unclean water in the stream that runs behind the village.
The owner of the house, the 65-year-old widow Nadibova, proudly welcomes us in front of the sunny yellow communal latrine in the backyard, which was also built by Mission Øst. Before, it was not safe for women in particular to go secluded in the raw nature, they had to stay until it got dark and walk far to find a place. Diseases do not spread so easily in the village anymore, Nadibova explains.
The road to today’s idyll has been long and hard. Nadibova became a widow when her eldest of 5 children was in 1st grade. Soon after, the entire village was hit by flooding and mudslides, and Nadibova had to start over on a barren plot of land:
“It was a difficult time, but with the water post we got more time for the kitchen garden, and we didn’t get sick as often anymore”, she recalls.
A simple water tap was exactly the help the 65-year-old widow, Nadibova, needed when she and her five children suddenly had to support themselves.
Like so many others who have received help, Nadibova happily shares her surplus of vegetables and water with others in the village who really need it. You can also share the joy and profit that clean water and sanitation brings to disaster-stricken families and isolated communities that really need it.
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