<\/p>\n
Along with providing water, H2O Wheels are also financially and socially empowering the women of Tharparkar.<\/p>\n
In the barren desert of Tharpakar, where desolate dunes spread across thousands of miles and living beings are a sight for sore eyes, Issiya Begum walks five kilometres, barefoot, every day to fetch water.<\/p>\n
The water, which is most often substituted with life, has given the 28-year-old a lifelong disability \u2014 a condition where her back is permanently bent. The incident occurred some years back when Issiya Begum was transporting water-filled clay pots from the nearby well to her home.<\/p>\n
Like other Thari women, Issiya too is in charge of fetching water for her house. But one day, her frail back couldn\u2019t bear the burden any more and caved in forever. That did not stop her from \u201cfulfilling her responsibility\u201d though, and the arduous journeys continue day in and day out.<\/p>\n
Studies show that 72 per cent of women<\/a> across Pakistan \u2014 especially in rural areas \u2014 are responsible for carrying household water and spend nearly three-fourths of their day in the exercise. The almost nine-hour-long job, without a single day off, not only affects the livelihood of these women but also their mental and physical health.<\/p>\n For young girls, these gender-bound responsibilities snatch their already dwindling chance at education. However, the women of Thar and other areas that stand in the face of a water crisis don\u2019t have a choice and they have come to terms with it \u2014 after all, water is life.<\/p>\n But when Nida Sheikh, an economics and development graduate, visited the area, the \u201cinhumane practice\u201d of fetching water deeply disturbed her and prompted her to transform adversity into an opportunity.<\/p>\n The first time Sheikh visited rural Sindh and Punjab was for a project on female entrepreneurship. But by the end of the trip, she had identified a pattern \u2014 most women were unable to even take a nap or socialise in the quest for water.<\/p>\n \u201cIn most of these areas, I came across marginalised women who were walking for kilometres and spending hours only to fetch a basic need,\u201d she told Dawn.com<\/em>. \u201cEven when they reach their destination, these women have to pull out water from 200-250 meter deep wells and then carry those pots back home.<\/p>\n \u201cSome days, they make multiple such journeys in a day \u2026 it is unimaginable, the toll this entire process takes on their minds and bodies,\u201d said Sheikh.<\/p>\n After each visit, she would come back home even more unsettled. And then, at an airport lounge on one fine day in 2018, Nida and her friends came up with an idea. Of course, it required a lot of research and groundwork, but they managed to identify the root cause of the problem: transportation.<\/p>\n After several prototypes and prolonged interaction with locals, the Tayaba Organisation, a non-profit organisation run by Nida, invented the H2O or \u201cHelp 2 Others\u201d Wheel \u2014 a water-carrying device that removes the burden from the women\u2019s shoulders.<\/p>\nWater on wheels<\/h2>\n