United Nations Radio

Gil Garcetti

PRES: In West Africa, the daily task of providing safe water for their families falls to women and girls. Former Los Angeles District Attorney, Gil Garcetti has documented both the drudgery of the search for water and the joy that results when a village gets a borehole, in a series of photos, currently on exhibit at the United Nations in New York. Diane Bailey caught up with him to ask what drew him to the subject of women and water.

GARCETTI: I heard the horror stories: the infant mortality, one mother who told me she had lost - I believe it was a 3-month old daughter who came down with diarrhea - two days later the baby is gone - and that diarrhea was caused by bad water. You see the images of people who are blind because of the water-borne diseases; you learn that women and girls are the ones that must fetch the water every day. It's not you do it on Wednesday, I'll do it on Friday. No, it's every day. And what that means, I learned, was that women are spending all their time fetching the water and then trying to clean it, boil it, whatever that might be. And girls - this was really key - girls usually do not go to school because they have to go and fetch the water.

DIANE: Let's look at your signature photograph here. This one - it's a group of 4 girls, you see them from the back, one's a very young girl. Tell me where this was taken and what struck you about it?

GARCETTI: This photograph of 3 adult women and one young girl was taken in the northern part of Ghana near Tamale. And this is a very poor region, very dry region. But what struck me was that these women and I walked with them - they walked one way about 3.2 miles, very hot, and the cans that they're carrying are 5 gallon containers. One has a larger, looks like a 7 gallon container of water. What struck me about it was two things: one, no boys, no men, and two, that they were literally carrying this on their head that's what they were planning on doing, and three the most vivid thing for me was this girl who's maybe 10 or 11 years old, she's not in school, she's learning that this is going to be her duty and responsibility, and even though she's not physically mature, she's going to be carrying a 5-gallon container on her head and she'll pay the price of that forever.

GARCETTI: But what happens when you have that borehole well you see the plume of water coming out of the earth like American movies in Oklahoma and Texas where they found oil and everyone's yelling and screaming - same thing, except one thing, this is more valuable, this is water and there's one photograph where there's the same water hole and we cap it a little bit and we're all drinking the water - white people and villagers - and this little girl with this gorgeous smile she sees us drinking the water and she comes up to us and she asks, "Is this the kind of water you drink in America? I said yes, and she walks away with her chest out so proud.

GARCETTI: Abu is in Niger and she's in charge of a micro-credit enterprise. When I literally barged into her compound, she saw me and she came right up to me and I said How many women are involved in this What do you do? She said we raise and sell goats, I said, how long have you been doing it? Well, ever since the borehole well came. How long ago was that? About 6 years. So how many goats have you sold? She said a little over 6,000. I was astonished! I said wow! She said, "It was my idea that for the first 3 years we only breed and raise the goats, we don't sell any". I said, "Well that was a brilliant idea, She said, "I know, it was my idea". (laughter) Great presence about her, and I asked her: "So what have you done with all this money"? She said we helped build a school, we provide uniforms for all the kids whose families can't afford the uniforms to go to school. We provide emergency medical service for everyone in the village, we provide medical service from the time a woman is pregnant through childbirth and about 6 months after childbirth, we have emergency food stuffs, she took me to a village, first village I've seen in rural Niger was this huge tank of water like you have in New York on all the apartments, huge tank, never seen that. She said I'll show you one other thing. So we walk around and what do we see? Solar panels. She had brought electricity to this village all because of safe water. It was the women who did this.

PRES: Gil Garcetti's book of photographs is entitled Women, Water and Wells. The exhibit will be on display at the UN through the 7th of September.

Producer: Diane Bailey
Duration: 4'00"