Water for Asrada, Bheemanpalli, Gathampakala

Current Situation:
- Water: No available safe water for consumption
- Hygiene & Sanitation: Lack of awareness about hygiene & sanitation as a basic human need.
- Health: Water borne diseases and other diseases still at large.
- Economy: Poor economical conditions. Most of the villagers are daily labourers | Women and girl child spend most of their time traveling long distances to fetch water for the basic needs. Their involvement in improving family economy is near to zero.
- Education: Lack of education, leading to unawareness of human rights. | Girl child is never introduced to schools as they are considered primary resources to take care of the households.
- Government Policies: Limited form of Government involvement in alleviating problems. | Problems in interior most villages remain hidden to the government’s & world’s eye

Goals overview

The primary goal is to provide safe drinking water & introduce sanitation for the villagers. Detailed goals could be:
- Water to be made available at the street level of this village using gravity water technique including water management.
- Introduce sanitation and community & personal hygiene practice in the village including waste water management.
- Introduce fund management, people management & community building.
- Bring a global exposure by posting videos/photos on blogs/AKVO etc

Current status

Currently VJNNS is involved in similar projects in other villages.

For GATHAM PAKALA | ASRADA | BHEEMANAPALLI, VJNNS has identified the source, from where the water would be drawn to be distributed to the village. Source is being identified after having discussed with village heads and older people.

Village heads and villagers have demanded to have Gravity Water System, installed in their village as they have seen similar structures being built in nearby villages and they are aware of the benefits what they would be drawing once the construction is ready.

GATHAM PAKALA | ASRADA | DHEEMANAPALLI seeks donations from donor organisations to have gravity water system in their village.

Project plan

Following activities are conducted during the 2 year tenure of the project:
- Staff orientation: Sharing the project purpose, Goal and implementation plan with the entire team.
- Exposure visit for Community (Including (CAG members)/CBO members AWW/panchyat secretary/ surpanchas etc): VJNNS staff meeting with village heads.
- Preliminary base line survey, and related activities / mid - end project survey: :Seeking local government colleges support to have provide NSS volunteers to perform baseline survey. This survey provides us micro level details of household situation regarding water and sanitation.
- Village level meetings: These meetings involve formation of communities and various meetings discussing various activities (current and future)
- Water testing before construction
- Construction of GRAVITY WATER SYSTEM: This includes constructing collection tank, filter tank and laying pipelines to the street level of the villages.
- Water testing after construction
- Construction of model cattle Sheds / soak pits / Kitchen garden / Waste water Management
- Construction of model Low cost model toilets to bring awareness amongst villagers.
- Promotion of health and sanitation education to school children (periodic training for school children)
- Training to the village volunteers about constructed units and future O&M.
- Improved livelihood trainings: Saved time in fetching water can be used for improving livelihood. VJNNS would involve itself into training villagers about adda leaves plate making, agarbatti making etc
- Wall Paintings & Slogan writings on water & sanitation in the village to induce awareness.
- VJJNS would slowly involve itself into withdrawal activities.

Expected outcomes

• One Gravity Water System for Three villages
• Four Sanitation model blocks to create awareness
• Formation of corpus fund for maintenance
• Behavioural change-Community & Personal Sanitation & Hygiene
• Water Management - Kitchen gardens, Soak pits, cattle sheds

Though this program is maintenance free, following plans are introduced to make it more sustainable:

Gravity Water System:
- The innovative systems gravity flow and filter system require only drying of the filter media on open platform twice in a year.
- In epidemic seasons light chlorination is done for additional treatment. This treatment and maintenance system is very inexpensive.
- For repairs of taps and pipelines, monthly collected funds from households (VDF) are used.

Village development fund (VDF):
- The community proposes to raise a small development fund to which each family will contribute with the CAGs.
- The CAG forms various committees to ground activities.
- Small amount will be collected periodically and it forms into a Corpus, which will be called “Village Development Fund” (VDF).
- The beneficiary members revolve the VDF for other developmental activities of the village as resolved by the members from time to time.
- The recovery continues in the same mode for other development actives to be taken up with the VDF.
- Water and Sanitation Committees will be formed from among the beneficiaries for maintenance of the system.
- Identified members will be imparted special training on the aspects of technical maintenance such as replacement of filter media, Chlorination of Water, Maintenance of Delivery Systems.

Since maintenance of the project is taken care of by the community and the VDF being utilized by the same group for different activities, the community remains well knit. The project becomes sustainable because of its effective Governance by the community.