Anitah lives in the village of Nawankonge. She is a 14-year-old girl studying at Nawankonge primary school, a school where FARM STEW distributed menstrual hygiene kits during 2022.

But Anitah was also having a hard time at school for other reasons, which the pads couldn’t solve. She was having a hard time because she would often arrive very late. In Africa, especially in Uganda, some teacher have a practice of punnishing latecomers, and Anitah was one of the pupils who was punished almost on a daily basis for being late.

One day the senior teacher called for a meeting where she asked several latecomers about their different reasons for coming to school late. Anitah said, “The challenge at our village is that we have only one water source, and we have to wait behind a long line of people for them to fill their jerrycans first, then we get water last.”

This challenge was made even bigger for Anitah because some villagers would take advantage of Anitah’s age and the cultural respect that the youth have for the elderly, and they would push in front of her, forcing her to wait even longer to fill her jerrycan. This brought a lot of stress into Anitah’s life until one day some good news came to her.

Anitah received happiness and hope the day FARM STEW came to her village to construct a borehole near her house using the village drill. The day she fetched water for the first time from that borehole, she was proud to be able to arrive at school in plenty of time.

Anitah is no longer arriving late at school. According to her teacher, Anitah’s concentration in class has been much better and even her performance has improved greatly. Anitah’s father is no longer worried about his daughter wandering around at night to collect water, and the house work is always finished on time since there is an abundance of water to do everything necessary.

Because of the new borehole, Anitah’s life is safer, and she faces one less stressful obstacle to reaching her full potential.

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