Every morning at 3am, Dina Njati begins an exhausting eight-hour struggle to provide her family with water. The 37-year-old climbs down a steep hillside, fills a 20-litre container from a tiny muddy pond, and hauls it back home on her head. She repeats this until she has enough water to cook, wash clothes, and bathe. But the gruelling trek is only part of her ordeal. The only water source serving her village of Mkambabisi, Malawi, is often so contaminated that it leaves both Dina and her young daughter sick. “It has happened so many times. We know it’s the water,” she said. “But we don’t say it out loud because where else are we going to get water?”
Widespread Crisis Across Malawi
Dina’s struggle is far from unique. Across Malawi, one in three people lack access to clean water, while almost 14 million people—more than half the population—do not have a decent toilet. Yet change is finally within reach. In just a few weeks, a new borehole funded by the Wimbledon Foundation and installed by WaterAid is due to transform life in Dina’s village, replacing dangerous daily journeys with clean water just minutes from her home. The change will also allow Dina to reclaim her career in carpentry, which she was forced to abandon when she moved to care for her ageing grandfather. “My hope is that when my daughter grows up, she shouldn’t experience what I have wanted to become something people talk about as ‘once upon a time’, not something she has to live through,” she added.
Impact on Maternal Health
The consequences of unsafe water are stark in maternity clinics. Sisters Eliza Brutula, 37, and Trinity Mbewe, 26, both gave birth at Kangolwa Centre in Chimbindu, but their experiences differed greatly. Hours after labour, Eliza was forced to make a treacherous 10-minute descent to the nearby River Katete to wash herself using water contaminated by agriculture. “For me I accepted my fate. This is what I went through, but now when I see this generation... they’re able to go through it the easier way,” she said. After WaterAid installed a clean water supply at the clinic, Trinity simply turned on a tap after giving birth.
Without clean water, proper sanitation and hygiene, mothers and newborn babies are at far greater risk of life-threatening infections, including maternal sepsis. Across sub-Saharan Africa, an estimated 36 mothers die from the infection every day, making women almost 150 times more likely to die than mothers in Europe and North America. Malawi bears one of the highest maternal sepsis burdens in the region, recording 77,536 cases in 2023—resulting in 107 deaths. WaterAid says that clean water, toilets, and handwashing could cut maternal and newborn deaths in half.
Personal Stories of Hardship
Loveless Chipokasa, 43, remembers giving birth before the clinic had running water. Desperate for a drink afterwards, she was told there was no water available. “They took a cup and stood by the roof to catch the rainwater,” she recalled. Margaret Zephena, 33, also gave birth before clean water reached the clinic and remembers making the same treacherous walk to the river after giving birth, only to be confronted by local people who complained that new mothers should not wash there. “I felt like my rights were being violated,” she said. “I’d just given birth. I wanted to wash. I wanted to feel good.” Today, both women have relatives give birth at the same clinic under very different circumstances.
Education and Future Opportunities
The effects of clean water also shape entire futures. Until 2022, Elshaday Gabriel spent up to an hour and a half every morning carrying 20-litre containers, often arriving late for school. WaterAid installed three taps in her village Thundy four years ago. “Now the water is nearby, I have more time to study,” she said. As a result, the teenager has secured a place at college to train as a nurse. “I want to serve my community,” she said.
For Lydia Konjwani, who lives in the same village as Dina, that future still feels painfully out of reach. Every morning she wakes at 2am to begin collecting water before school, making repeated trips and queuing for hours before hurrying to class exhausted. “I sleep at school because I’m tired,” she says. “If I didn’t have to wake up so early to fetch water, I would do better. I’d be able to concentrate.” Last year she became so ill with diarrhoea caused by contaminated water that she missed her exams and was forced to repeat a year. Her dream of becoming a teacher or police officer now feels uncertain. WaterAid is due to bring clean water to Lydia’s village in the coming weeks. Asked whether that could change her future, she answers without hesitation: “Yes. Definitely.”
Community Transformation
For 45 years, farmer Dyson Jambo relied on muddy river water that regularly spread disease, but today he proudly grows tomatoes beside his home in Thundy using the village water supply. “My life is full of joy,” he says, explaining that having water nearby means he can irrigate his crops, monitor them every morning, and sell the harvest for extra income. Peter Phiri, WaterAid’s Malawi Country Director, said: “Across Malawi, one in three people still lacks access to clean water. As a result, women face life-threatening risks during childbirth, newborns are exposed to preventable, often deadly, infections, and entire communities are held back, their potential limited by the absence of this basic resource. We’re proud of the progress in Ntchisi, where women can now give birth more safely and communities have the foundations to grow and thrive.”
Chef and presenter Andi Oliver, who travelled to Malawi with journalist Nada Farhoud, added: “People don’t want somebody else to transform their lives for them. Give them access to clean water and they can transform their own lives. That’s what people want. Everything really does start with water.”
