By Leslie Kahihikolo

High up in the dry mountainous terrain of central Afghanistan nestled on the slopes of Koh e Baba (Father Mountain) is the village of Sherdosh. The air is thin and winters are long and brutal.

The people here are Hazara. For centuries they have suffered as a minority group looked down upon by many Afghans, persecuted from the time of Genghis Khan to the more recent Taliban. Now in a time of reconstruction they are often overlooked as aid groups reach out to people in more troubled areas.

The people of Sherdosh were forced to walk almost 2 hours up the valley to collect water from a spring – a spring shared with animals.  There was no adequate source of clean water near the village except a small ditch that had water in it after the winter snows melted.

Using techniques from Transformational Community Development, GHNI is working together with the overlooked and forgotten people of Sherdosh by helping them pipe the spring water to the village.

Carrying the pipe up the valley. Notice the hand-dug trench to the right.

Through generous donations, GHNI was able to provide the piping materials while the villagers did the hard work of digging trenches and laying pipe.  Responsible for different sections of the trench, groups of men dug through rock and gravel to make a trench 1 mile long and 3 feet deep, below the frost line.

Building the spring box

Digging in this harsh environment was no easy task, especially when the men encountered a rock table 3 feet below the surface of the spring.  To complete the installation of the spring box, an impact hammer had to be rented and lugged up the valley to dig down an additional 3 feet.

It works!

With the spring box installed, pipe laid and buried, a hydrant was then installed in the village.  The people of Sherdosh now have clean, safe water to drink!  Since the people and animals now drink from separate sources of water, it is expected that the incidence of waterborne diseases will lessen.  The lives of the Sherdosh people have been transformed now that they have easy access to clean drinking water.