BUWA changed my life

By Julie Bach

10. March 2006

Although she lives in a clay hut, Florence is an enlightened woman since she joined her local subgroup of BUWA, and this has improved her life dramatically.

 “The good things in BUWA is that they taught me how to use a wood-saving stove and a rubbish bin, which really improved our hygiene and reduced diseases to my children,” she says.A tour around Florence's house shows how life changed in her family. Inside her hut everything is neatly tucked away and decorated with small knitted tablecloths. In her kitchen hut the wood saving stove is burning and the floors are swept clean. “I was also taught about how to avoid those parasites that live in the earthen floor in our house,” Florence explains. But it is not only about her house.  Florence's relation to her husband has also improved.

“I have learned to communicate with my husband and make him listen to me. Now we share our vegetable garden, before he only dug his own garden,” Florence says. “Before I didn't have much self-esteem but now after I joined BUWA I am not shy anymore. And I have earned respect from my community, because I now know how to keep my house and my family,” she adds.