Afghanistan: Extending of digging the drinking water well of Neeswan Bentulhoda high school

Everyone knows about the war in Afghanistan, but few know about the water difficulty in the country. Afghanistan was once a flourishing country with beautiful panoramas and plentiful food and water supplies. But decades of war have affected the infrastructure providing people with water that is safe to drink. The population of Afghanistan is approximately 29 million people with 79% of them residing in rural areas. However, only 27% of the population have access to sources of drinkable water. In rural areas, this proportion decreases to 20%, the lowest coverage rate worldwide.
In Daikundi Province, people mostly get their drinking water from wells and aqueducts that are critically dependent on rain and snow fall. Due to reduced snow and rain fall and climate changes, the water supply problem has recently become worse as the environment has become drier and the ground water level has fallen.

Hence, we have some schools without drinking water in Daikundi. In Ulqan village of the Shahristan District, there is a general state high school for girls, called Neeswan Bentulhoda. The 20-year old school building has one principal room, one small warehouse and seven classrooms. There are about 700 schoolgirls studying from first to twelfth grade in two shifts. The personnel comprise a female principal, 13 female teachers, and two male support staff.
On a little hill in front of the school is a twenty three meter water well. It had enough water to use for six or seven months. However, the water in the well is not enough anymore as the well needs to be deeper by about ten meters. GFA Bridges will finance the drilling for this extension so that the school girls and the nearby population are going to have enough and clean water all year long.

The project is supported by Ghulam Hossain Parwiz, the office manager of the GFA TVET project in Kabul.