Published in March 2025

Life in drylands is often made very challenging by the lack of a reliable source of clean water, as we learned when we spoke with a member of the Sivume community in southern Zimbabwe. Thankfully, we also learned how this challenge can be addressed by sand dam projects.

When we spoke with Florah Moyo, a 49-year-old mother of eight and member of the Sivume community in southern Zimbabwe, we asked her what her life was like before her community began working on sand dam projects in their area. She explained to us how hard it was for her to access clean drinking water during this time:

"Before we used to travel for around 1km to the nearest river, where we would then have to dig scoop holes to get water. This would take around two hours there and back. In the dry seasons we would be forced to travel even further, to far away boreholes or dams in neighbouring villages around 2.5 kilometres away."

Florah continued to expand on the difficulties she and her community faced in the past, noting how the quality of the water she used to drink was often poor and could lead to contracting illnesses:

"The water would not be clean. Sometimes we would get diarrhoea from drinking this water. The water used to affect kids especially. You would hear them crying, saying their stomachs are aching, things like that."

Experiencing such problems with collecting water meant that little was available for farming, especially during the dry seasons. Florah explained that growing crops was often impossible due to the dry conditions. However, she also tells us that much has changed since they began working on their sand dam projects:

"Now we have water from the sand dams, so things have become easier for our community. Now we can do farming, grow vegetables or rear chickens. It has become easier for us to do projects like these because we know that water is here now."

"Because of the water, now life is easier. I can drink water, I can plant vegetables, all this makes my life easier. Before it was difficult to grow crops because you were relying on the rains and sometimes the rains didn’t fall, so it was very difficult. But now we have the sand dam we are hoping to grow more food for our families."

Florah Moyo, member of the Sivume community, Zimbabwe.

Florah also shared that she and her community have taken part in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) Training, facilitated by Dabane Trust (our partners in Zimbabwe), which she tells us has taught the community a lot about how to make use of their sand dams to look after their health:

"Thanks to Dabane, I have learnt that every homestead must have a toilet, because if everyone uses a toilet at home then this will stop dirty water from getting washed into the river and polluting the sand dam."

We concluded the interview by asking Florah how she felt when thinking about the sand dam projects and everything she and her community has achieved, to which she responded with the following:

"I am very happy, because it is something which has changed the lives of the community. Although the work was hard and the stones we used to build the dam walls were very heavy, we worked well together and I was happy to do the work because I knew that water would no longer be a problem."

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Our current appeal: please donate what you can to help communities in Zimbabwe to restore degraded land with sand dams