An urban hell

AN animal carcass covered in flies floats in filthy slime-filled water in a concrete canal. On closer inspection, mosquito eggs, rubbish and faeces are clearly visible in the murky pool, but this does not seem to put off the children busy collecting water.

The air is thick with red dust and an unidentifiable acrid smell which burns the back of the throat.

It's hard to believe this stream - which a British water company would no doubt struggle to make safe - is destined for the city's mains cleaning plant.

Welcome to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso's capital city.

Just a few streets away, the city centre shows all the indications of development, with tarmac roads and high-rise buildings alongside hotels, shops, bars and restaurants. But decreasing rainfall and persistent droughts have forced the rural poor, who traditionally rely on farming for a living, to move to the cities in search of work.

This mass migration has seen urban communities mushroom unchecked, resulting in hastily erected makeshift hovels with no proper infrastructure sitting side by side with the smart brickand- mortar walled houses of the better off.

Many of the urban poor are forced to walk several kilometres to get clean water and the majority do not have access to proper sanitation and are forced to defecate in the streets.

These cataclysmic problems have prompted WaterAid to set up an urban programme for Burkina Faso.

Although in its infancy, the project has already helped several communities build stand-pipes, which provide people with safe drinking water for a nominal fee. The stand-pipes are run by a committee drawn from men and women within the community, who reinvest profits into more stand-pipes.

WaterAid also builds latrines for individuals on a means-tested basis, as well as helping out city schools.

KALIKE Linkone, headteacher at one of Ouagadougou's schools, told us that before WaterAid helped them build latrines, the school's 1,000 children were forced to openly defecate in the school yard. Since WaterAid's intervention, the children also have sanitation lessons as part of the curriculum, but the school has other problems.

"Children used to defecate in the surrounding area," Kalike told us. "Now, the lack of a fence means some of the surrounding population and animals are also defecating here. We try to clean up, but this is difficult.

"The latrines were built last year. The difference has been very great. There has been a behavoural change - we now have an understanding that the use of latrines and hand-washing are very important."

But driving around Ouagadougou's slums, it is clear that WaterAid's city programme has a long way to go. A 30-ft-high steaming rubbish dump towers over a pool of stagnant water. Children dressed in rags pick through the mound, hoping to find anything of use. Excrement encircles the murky water, yet people still collect it.

Although urban areas fare slightly better than their rural counterparts on sanitation and water coverage, the situation is still dire, with only one in seven people having access to sanitation and 74 percent having access to water.

Particularly problematic are what are described as "semi-urban" areas - large, quickly expanding villages on the outskirts of cities, for which neither rural nor urban councils are willing to take responsibility.

As a result, people living there - who can number thousands in one settlement - are left to fend for themselves.

When we arrive in Zongo, on the outskirts of Ouagadougou, women are gathered around a well, chatting, joking and filling containers with cloudy-looking water. Just a few minutes earlier, we had seen people defecating nearby.

Word of our arrival clearly spreads fast. Shortly after we turn up, 34-year-old Samuel Ouedraogo, who is one of the village chiefs, has made his way over to see us. He told us of the problems facing the 10,000-strong community.

"When people start to unite to decide to live somewhere, this grows and then they need a structure, I am responsible for this. I am the ears of the chief of the village. The people who aren't natives of the village go through me and I can help them reach the chief. You can see the colour of the water but we don't have a choice. People are going to the toilet and drinking the same water. We know this water is not very good for us.

"When we only have the one well we do not have enough water. During the rainy season, both wells are full but we can only reach one. This causes tension and the women sometimes fight. Sometimes the women who grow vegetables have their own small private wells and some of the other women try to use these too - this also causes tension."

His colleague Nikiema Antoine, another village chief, agrees: "We love our wives a lot but sometimes when they bring back the water, we are ashamed. When we see the water, our thirst goes."

One of the women at the well, Tapsoba Aminata, tells us she used to have seven children but three have died from disease - two from smallpox and one from meningitis. She collects 80 litres of water every day, which used to take her four trips, but now her husband has bought her a cart, it only takes one.

"I don't have any choice but to drink this water, I know it's bad to drink. I haven't had any illnesses, but sometimes the children get sick. I wish a better future for my children. I wish for them to be more mindful, to get an education, and get a good job to take care of me and my husband when we get old.

"I don't want my children to suffer like I have. I hope my daughter just hears about my suffering and doesn't have to live it for herself."

BURKINA FASO

Population: 12.4 million

Infant mortality: One in five

Life expectancy: 47 years

Water supply coverage: 51 per cent

Sanitation coverage: 12 per cent

Below poverty line: 45.2 per cent

HOW YOU CAN HELP

A NORTH-EAST water company has raised more than £2.5m for WaterAid in the past ten years. Northumbrian Water's WaterAid committee announced the figure following The Northern Echo's trip to Burkina Faso, where one of the charity's newest programmes is underway.

As well as organising fundraising events throughout the year, an annual appeal form is sent out to customers with their water bill, which raises between £25,000 and £30,000 and saves about 1,700 lives every year.

The water company's communications team leader, Cara Hall, visited Burkina Faso with The Northern Echo. Cara, who was born in Zimbabwe, said: "I am very, very proud that Northumbrian Water works with WaterAid.

"I think WaterAid are doing a fantastic job in giving people the basic human rights of clean water and sanitation - things which I and other people in the North-East take for granted."

* To donate, fill in the form sent by Northumbrian Water with your bill, call WaterAid's hotline on 0845-767-5000 or log on to www.wateraid.org.uk