During the dry season, when dirt roads are cracked from the relentless heat, the sight of women walking miles, balancing pots of water on their heads, is common in rural Sri Lanka.
While the men tend to paddy fields, the women are left with the arduous task of collecting water for household use. They account for every drop of water consumed, utilised or wasted – making them crucial players in rural water projects.
Talpothta is a typical agricultural village in Sri Lanka’s dry zone, whose life cycle is completely dependent on the rainfall that has become extremely erratic in the last few years.
In 2006, the village was chosen as one of the beneficiaries of a 263-million-dollar Asian Development Bank (ADB) project that set out to provide safe drinking water to 900,000 people in Sri Lanka’s north-central and eastern provinces.
But unlike many other development projects in the country, this is led primarily by women, who comprise an overwhelming majority of the village community.
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