Lwamondo village is one of the many water-starved areas in the Vhembe District. The village, with its thousands of households, sometimes experiences dry spells of water for as long as three months at a time. This has been going on for years, but women - who are never short of ideas to take care of their families - will always find a way out of their challenges.
A group of determined women from the area have taken it upon themselves to fix this problem by connecting pipes from a local river up in the mountain, all the way down to their village. One of the women on this project, Ms Shumani Masunzi, said they had suffered without water for too long. "We have engaged the powers that be for a long time but found no audience. For years we have been on our own, having to depend on water bought from those with boreholes. Sometimes the municipality would remember us and out of the blue we would find running water in our taps. Life had been very difficult for us as most families here are indigent with no income. As women, we could not sit and lament any longer while the whole community was suffering. We had to stand up and do something to lift us up from the predicament we found ourselves in," she said.
Masunzi said they knew water was available in the river up in the mountain but had to come up with a plan to lead it down to the village for use. "Each household contributed an amount of R2 500 and we managed to buy pipes. At first we hired a man we thought had the expertise to help us but he failed us, and in the end we decided to just do it ourselves. We all have plenty of water now, with six 5000-litre tanks in the village," Masunzi beamed.
Another one of the women, Ms Livhuwani Netshiongolwe, said that where there was a will, there was always a way. "We as women saw the opportunity to get things done and made use of it. We now have water all over the village. We have other long-term plans too. Soon, we will be starting agricultural projects that will sustain all our homes. We are out here showing that, as women, we can do even better than men. Do not underestimate the power of women," she said.