By Eucharia Agu the General President (D&G) Women Awhum
The Democracy and Governance (D&G) programme was inaugurated in our community in December 2007. It was first of its kind because no other Organization has ever brought majority of women if not all together in Awhum except the D&G programme of DEC. Immediately after the inauguration our women started having monthly general meetings where issues affecting our people especially women were discussed. The Obinwanne D&G Awhum finally reached agreement that scarcity of water has become a major issue affecting everybody especially women whereas there is borehole in our community but not functional. Therefore the D&G women decided to intervene on the water issue. With support from DEC, a 25-member projects Implementation Committee (PIC) for the execution of our identified community development project (water) was inaugurated. We the D&G women identified refurbishing repair and installation of the transformer which gives power to the water pumps as the most pressing need. This is because life had been too miserable to the entire members of the Community due to water scarcity. This transformer broke down since 2002 and as a result there was no good source of water. Several other groups have collected funds from women and other community members and squandered them with no result of water in the village and our people are fed up of contributing money always until our D&G women intervened. Since January 2007, as a matter of fact we have faced so many challenges and attacks by some men and people who think we can do nothing about the water. They tried to scare us away but we refused as we have been trained to shun intimidation of any kind as long as we are doing the right thing. Because the women can speak with one voice the transformer as a matter of fact has been successfully refurbished, repaired and installed and the water pump is revitalized and on August 31st 2007, the restoration of Awhum Water project became a reality. The project was financially implemented by the Democracy and Governance women (D&G) through their levies as well as training, monitoring and financial assistance from DEC Enugu.
