Tanakaka’s Well of Blessings

Clean water arrived at Tanakaka Elementary School.

In the past, the children carried jerry cans to get water from the river beds to fetch water for drinking, cooking, and other needs. The school also asked the students to bring water for the school’s toilets and gardens.

This impacted the children, they were often too exhausted to concentrate on their lessons.

“I was not fortunate,” Pelipus a local resident said, “My family used to collect water from the river, which was sometimes polluted by cattle waste. We had to dig a hole at the riverside to get cleaner water.”

The well at the school has transformed the lives of the community. The availability of clean water right in the village has also gradually improved the community’s health. And they can take a bath whenever they want to and wear much cleaner clothes.

Children no longer have to walk miles to collect clean water and can now concentrate on their education and other activities.

Vegetable farms sprung up, and with that, better nutrition for the children.

“The well has benefited the lives of some 350 people living close to it,” said Pelipus.

The local community, with the full support of the West Sumba Area Development Program and a local partner ADPADP, dug the well in 2010. It was not an easy undertaking since the land on Sumba Island is rocky. But, they managed to strike the underground water source and the well soon became the main source of clean water for the village.

Femilia, a former registered children, said that the well was really a blessing from God. Femilia lives with her grandparents, her mother, and her sister close to the well. Just like Pelipus, before the well was available, Femilia had to fetch water from the river.

With the arrival of the well, the ADP trained the local community, including Femilia’s mother, about organic farming and distributed seeds to them.

Many families have been able to develop vegetable farms right in their yards.

“We no longer need to buy vegetable produces from the market in other village,” Femilia said. “We have even been able to sell our farm produce and use the earnings to fund my sister’s and my schooling needs.”

She expressed her gratitude to the interventions provided by the ADP, including the substantial transformation in the lives of the local community, especially the children.

*Written by Wahana Visi Indonesia of West Sumba Operational Office | Translate by Bartolomeus Marsudihardjo, Field Communications World Vision Indonesia