Derash: Rolling Jerrican

How many miles can you walk in a day? Not for the betterment of your health, not to lose the weight you may have accumulated through eating, lounging, or after childbirth or hormonal changes, but simply to fetch water. Let me reframe the question: how many miles can you walk to collect twenty-five liters of water, and then carry it on your back or your head?

If you ask me, my answer is zero. I can barely convince myself to make it to the gym, it takes me at least thirty minutes of negotiating with my own body and mind before I step onto a treadmill. And yet, in many parts of Ethiopia and across Africa, girls wake up before dawn, walk five miles to reach a water source, and then five miles back, carrying the crushing weight of twenty-five liters of water.

Why am I asking this question? Because I believe we have grown desensitized. We see these images of young girls carrying water on their backs or balanced on their heads, and we accept it as ordinary. We normalize it. We stop thinking about what it truly costs.

But for me, it is not abstract. I grew up in Ethiopia, where water scarcity was part of daily life. I witnessed who carried the water and how they carried it. And as a WASH advocate and a women’s rights defender, I could not ignore what I saw: girls missing out on school because of water.

Think about it. She is expected to fetch water, rush back home, and still make it to school on time. She must carry her twenty-five liters, then sit in class and participate as though her body were not already aching. She must compete for college admissions as though she had the same opportunities as those who never lifted a jerrycan. With that small body, she shoulders the weight of survival, every single day.

To me, this is more than a household chore. It is an obstacle. It is a system that keeps her out of school, out of opportunity, out of possibility. That is why I created Derash. Inspired by the Q-Drum in South Africa, Derash is a jerrycan that rolls. It is designed for the rugged roads of rural towns, built to endure being dragged over dirt and stone. Derash saves time. It saves energy. Most of all, it saves her future.

Derash is not just a container for water, it is a container for dignity. It is a chance for her to attend school without her body breaking under the burden of survival. It is one small but vital disruption in a system that has asked too much of her for far too long.