Every morning thousands of women in Ethiopia set out from their homes. Many of them toil for three or four hours through the parched landscape. They have clay jugs strapped to their backs. Even when empty, these vessels weigh up to 15 kilograms. The objective of the daily hike: the nearest watering place.

One of these women was Engete Mengistu. The 43-year-old widow lives in the Merhabete District, a dusty region about 180 kilometres north of the capital Addis Ababa. Engete no longer remembers exactly when her husband died. After that she never married again, but is endeavouring to support her five children as a single mother. "I was afraid another man would not take care of them like their real father," she says. For Engete that meant not only washing, cooking, cleaning and going to the market. In addition she carried out the traditional man’s tasks: tilling and sowing, in an attempt to reap a meagre harvest from the dry earth. But as long as she was obliged to walk for three or four hours to the nearest watering place, it was impossible to cope with her daily chores. Since Menschen für Menschen constructed a well for the local farming community, it takes Engete only 15 minutes to get water. Needless to say, rearing five children alone is no longer quite such a mammoth task.