Sanitation and Clean Water for 60 Dalit Families

In India, 80 per cent of the population are engaged in agricultural work. Water and irrigation is of course an essential part of the industry.  With climate change, India is experiencing much less annual rain fall and as a result, water has become a very important resource.  Tiruvannamalai district in Tamil Nadu is one of the driest areas, getting very little rain fall per year.  The average yearly rainfall is only 1074.7 mm, which falls in the months of October, November and December.  The climate for the rest of the year is extremely dry and in the summer months very hot.  

With such a dry climate where our Nandri villages are based, saving rain water is vital.  Nandri has instigated an exciting new project as part of our Clean Water initiative, to establish water harvesting systems in the villages and houses of our Nandri families.  Our first two systems were installed in the Nandri Centre. The centre has an open terrace measuring 2700 sq ft.  The rain water from the terrace is collected through pipes into a special water holding pit dug into the ground.  The water is then filtered through various stones and sand to purify it.  This system since its installation, has provided the Nandri Centre with all its water needs.  

Our next plan is to extend this system to our Nandri villages, so our families have adequate access to clean water to use for drinking, cooking and growing agricultural produce.  Also this will aid our families to have access to water for hygiene purposes. With the pandemic still such a threat to our families, having enough water to wash your hands is presently a luxury.  This new water harvesting system will be life changing for our families.  Something that we so take for granted in our every day life - access to clean water - is presently impossible for our families.  Nandri intends to make this a reality and with your help and generous sponsorship, we can make this dream come true for more of our villages and families.   We thank you, our donors, for your generous and kind support. We would be grateful for any help to continue our work.  

On behalf of our mothers and their families I extend a big "Nandri" (thank you) to you all.  

Nandri takes great pride at the remarkable speed with which sanitation cover has increased in the last two years. To date we have supported 45 families to construct toilets in their homes and facilitated 58 families to receive support from the government to build toilets in their homes. Besides helping them to establish the infrastructures, we are also concentrating on creating awareness on using the toilets, conservation of water resources and the importance of planting trees. We conducted various training programs on the above topics for the mothers and more than 300 mothers have benefited  from this programme.

One of our initiatives is to plant more trees and to date approximately  5000 seeds have been planted on the banks of lakes in various villages. Mothers and their children were involved in this project.

Outcome of the project: