By Andrew Sinclair | Development Director
A few weeks ago it was World Water Day - It was a day to celebrate the life water brings us, but also an opportunity to remember that no one can live without this precious natural resource.
It was interesting to see that many of our fellow NGOs had pictures of women carrying water on their heads as a reminder of the challenge so many face around the world to access their basic daily water needs. This highlighted the opportunities there could be for Wello WaterWheels to make an impact on the lives of women and girls in India and beyond.
The UN estimates that there are now 663 million people around the world who lack access to safe water. We are making progress as this figure is down from one billion people just a few years ago. We can all play our part by being careful about using the water we have and helping others to get better access to the life giving water we all need each day.
RED International’s focus for World Water Day was once again on the WaterWheel project in rural India where, thanks to the generosity of our supporters’, our partner has now enabled 100 families in rural Rajasthan to have access to a Wello WaterWheel for their daily water needs.
The exciting news is that we have just placed an order with Wello in India for 200 more WaterWheels. 100 will be going to expand the project in Rajasthan and the rest are being sent to 6 other locations around India to promote the use of the WaterWheels among new communities. We were able to increase the size of our order thanks to a special discount from Wello which was gathering orders for their current production run. The grant we received via Global Giving UK at the end of 2015 helped put us in a position to be able to take advantage of this offer.
In India the first group of our partner's Community Health Workers (CHWs) have now being given visual aids for health and hygiene education on safe sources of water and how to make the best use of the water people have access to. The CHWs are being giving specific training on the use of these materials which now includes information on the use of the Wello WaterWheels. 20 more sets of the visual aids have been produced for use in the annual training programmes for the CHWs which will be happening in the coming months. These education materials have been funded through the WaterWheel project. Our partner has realised that the Community Health Workers may be able to play a role in promoting the use of the WaterWheels and we are looking to see if we can provide every CHW who wants one with their own WaterWheel.
We have finally been able to get a Wello WaterWheel back to the UK. Although our runner in this year’s London Marathon who is #Running4RED is not allowed to run with a WaterWheel we are looking for other #WaterWheelChallenges and people to do some event or challenge with a WaterWheel to raise funds for the project. So if you have any ideas for a #WaterWheelChallenge please let us know!
We very much value your partnership and support for the WaterWheel project over the last two years since we launched the project in April 2014. It is very encouraging to be in a position to order 200 more WaterWheels for our partner’s projects in India. The interest in the WaterWheels in Rajasthan continues to grow and it is exciting to see WaterWheels from this latest order being sent to new areas and communities.
We will look forward to sharing with you about these new projects as we continue on this journey together through 2016. Please continue to share this project with your friends and wider network.
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