“Raising hope that out street will finally be repaired”

“I am Stayka Gocheva from Sulitsa in the Stara Zagora Municipality of Bulgaria. I live on street 11. I hold the mandate of residents on this street to advocate for the urgent need of its rehabilitation.  This street has an eleven-year history of construction. The main problem is water erosion caused by torrential rains due to its high inclination. The eroded stones and gravels spill over to an adjacent main road, causing its blockage and subsequent interruption of motor traffic flow. The cumulative gullies created on this street usually produce fast-flowing streams of floodwater after the rains.  These effects and consequences continue to worsen each subsequent year.

We received the support of the WeWash project and the SI President’s Appeal ‘Women, Water & Leadership’ to help us present our problem and talk directly to the municipal responsible officers. Promises of a repair have now been made and we do hope that such promises will be translated into action to enable residents of this street  – most of whom are older people, to benefit from a repaired and accessible street before winter starts”.

“A hopeless situation before help came my way”

I am Stoyka Teneva and I live in Hristianovo, a village in the Stara Zagora Municipality of Bulgaria. We had no water in our house for two-three weeks as a result of burst water pipes that connect the house to the village pipeline. Our yard was flooded by the torrential rains and we did not realize that a leakage from the water supply pipes was contributing to the pooling water in our compound. These events destroyed the structure of the house and killed many of the plants that we grow for food.  This problem was quite beyond our means to solve.

Then I shared this situation at a village meeting organized by WeWash project.  A staff from the Water and Sanitation Company came to assess the situation. Subsequently, four days of work on the broken water pipes, their replacement and final installation solved the problem.

Sharing this problem at the village meeting really helped in providing a suitable and satisfactory solution. I now have a clean and efficient water supply in my house”.

Watch the video below to understand more about the women and the families that you are supporting through the SI President’s Appeal 2017-2019 and the constant challenges faced by Stayka, Stoyka and other members of their community, in accessing safe water and sanitation.