Forty-five-year-old Lislang Mro used to visit the only waterfall, located around 700 metres from her house in Pledey village in Bandarban, thrice a day to collect water for family chores.
The route, from her home to the waterfall, is entirely hilly. Also, the path is somewhere slippery and somewhere rocky, making the journey cumbersome.
But Lislang and womenfolk of 20 families of the village have walked the entire path daily, throughout the year, to collect water and to bathe at the waterfall even during the rainy season as the place is the only source of water for the villagers.
Many of the women even sustained injuries after they slipped over on the hilly path but still they had no option but to go there for water, an essential part of people's daily life.
Earlier, they had to walk a long distance through forests and hills to collect water from a waterfall
Photo: Dhaka TribuneThe situation, however, has changed in the last few months and they are no longer required to do the difficult task of transporting water from the waterfall to their homes. They now collect water from the reservoir set up beside the village.
To enjoy this facility, they built a tiny concrete barrier down the stream to stop the water from flowing down. The water was thus arranged to come down to the nearest location of the village via pipes.
The water is then reserved in a large concrete reservoir containing three chambers. Of those, the first two are used as purifiers.
“The reservoir near the village is a great relief for us. Now we do not have to take the hilly path and walk through forest to collect water and having baths,” said Khamchong Mro, head of the village.
“In addition, the natural purifying system of the reservoir gives us clean water. This is ultimately reducing the incidence of water-borne diseases among the village people,” he said.
He also thanked Arannayk Foundation that brought this change in how women collect water for daily needs of their families by taking a number of initiatives, including conserving forest and setting up the water reservoir in the village.
Farid Uddin Ahmed, executive director of the foundation, said things were not as easy as they appear now.
“We had to make the locals understand the relation between the forest and the water source first.
“Usually, the hilly villages in the country where different indigenous communities live largely depend on nearby creeks as water sources. But in the recent time, many creeks dried up after the monsoon because of rapid deforestation.
“Later, we arranged training and distributed funds to engage the villagers in alternative livelihood activities so that their dependency on forest resources can be avoided,” explained Farid.
Arannayk Foundation was formed by joint supervision of the governments of Bangladesh and the US.
Initially, the local community in Pledey village established a management plan for their village under which they planted native species of trees in the degraded forest land. The species include bamboos planted in foothills.
They also strengthened monitoring and protection measures, and established a revolving loan fund using their own savings. Later, Arannayk Foundation made some donations.
From the fund, the locals took loan based on their need and plan to begin alternative livelihood activities, including gardening, cattle rearing and small business.
Also, the villagers played the key role in selecting the site to have the reservoir built. Arannayk Foundation later set up the facility free of charge.