Video: Water cart donkeys

When Mauritania gained its independence from France fifty-odd years ago, and a brand new capital city, Nouakchott was founded, the designers forgot to install a water system. Great planning. As a result, apart from the very rich everyone has to buy their water from around fifty thousand donkey-pulled water carts.

These carts fill up two or three times a day from the dozens of water-points about the city, and it gives SPANA’s mobile clinic a daily opportunity to visit and treat minor problems ‘in situ’.  But just as importantly, it gives us a chance to ‘get at’ their owners and drivers – mostly young, poor, semi-literate migrants from all over west Africa.

Here you can see our treacher Mohamed Baba belabouring the lads about treating their donkeys better.  

Diana, our education director – produced a series of posters, designed for semi-literate adults on welfare and husbandry themes. We also produced over six thousand headcollars to try to change the habit of whopping the donks on the head and side to steer them.

You know you’re making progress when you see people copying the idea. Even better though, the number of beating wounds has dropped by about three-quarters.

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Jeremy Hulme

Cheif Executive