Meet the Kabre family – Tiibo (41), Awa (32) and their 11 children.
They live in Tingyiri, Burkina Faso, one of our partner communities where The Sonder Project drilled and installed a new well in October 2024. Today the well serves approximately 400 people, providing a reliable source of clean and safe water.
For families like the Kabre’s, something as simple as access to water transforms everything — from health and livelihoods to relationships and peace of mind. When we visited their home, Tiibo and Awa shared how life has changed since the well arrived in their village.
Life before the well
Before the Sonder well was drilled at Tingyiri, the main source of water for the family and many like them was a shallow, open well a 30-minute walk away. Every day, Awa and other women in the village made that exhausting trip — sometimes up to four times — just to meet their families’ daily needs.
If they got there a little later than everyone else, the water level would be too low to collect. That meant waiting around for it to rise again, turning a basic necessity into an all-day burden.
Awa and her daughter at the well
Strained Harmony and Health
The scarcity of water didn’t just cause fatigue — it caused tension between neighbors and community members.
“At times, even the men went to the well to see why things were taking so long,” Tiibo recalled. “Sometimes, they’d find arguments breaking out over whose turn it was to fill up.”
It was not uncommon for them to find their wives waiting around for the water level to rise again – or in a quarrel with other women over who gets to fill her container first or who had collected too much that day.
Understandably, this was a source of discontent for the community as a whole.
Once the day’s water was finally carried home, it had to settle before use, filled as it was with dirt and sediment. Yet this was the only option the Kabre family had for drinking, cooking, and cleaning.
Needless to say, their health took a few hits over the years.
“The local health center was like our second home.” – Tiibo Kabre
The clinic is not too far out from their home, however sometimes family members needed medication that was only available at other facilities, which cost money and more time to travel. Some months the family would spend 50,000 CFA (~ $90) on travel and medication alone. This is a significant expense for subsistence farmers like the Kabre’s whose average income is typically less than $2/day.
Fortunately, through funds raised during The Sonder Project’s 2024 Water is Her Right benefit concert in Sebastopol, California, Tingyiri’s new deep well became a reality — turning years of hardship into history.
Tingyiri village residents pose at the new well
Quality of Water, Quality of Life
Today the nearest water source is a brief 5-minute walk from the Kabre family home. The difference has been life-changing.
The reduced distance means anyone can go and collect water multiple times a day for their home, even at night. There’s no more scarcity which means no more fights. Sometimes women even sing together as they’re collecting their water.
“Life is easier now.” Awa told us simply. “We can cook at any time of the day, which is convenient.”
The Sonder well has also resulted in family members having more time than before, and Awa and Tiibo are now saving money that once went to medical expenses due to waterborne illnesses. With the increased time, they can now focus more on income-generating activities like farming and a trading business.
For the children, it means fewer days of school missed, clean uniforms, and more food in their bellies.
The Kabre family at their home
Awa said it best as our visit to the family’s home ended:
“When you have clean water, everything you have and all that you do is of quality.”
Words that speak for many in Tingyiri.
This story is one of many made possible by people who believe that access to clean water is the foundation of a dignified life. When you support The Sonder Project, you help create more stories like the Kabre’s — stories of restored health, opportunity, and hope.