Clean Water Wells

Water Is Life

There is a cluster of villages inhabited by approximately fifteen hundred persons, mostly tribals. These villages are nestled in the scenic Sahayadri hill ranges near Triambakeshwar in Nashik district, Maharashtra.

The villagers are mostly farm laborers, working on a daily wage basis during the cultivation period and they remain jobless during the summers. The villages lack proper sanitation facilities and the villagers are forced to defecate in the open. Women especially face a greater risk as they have to walk a long distance to the fields to relieve themselves. Apart from the risk and the perennial odor, it creates an unhealthy environment for the young and the old villagers and the children too.

The cluster of villages lacks a proper well which provides clean water. The villagers have to trek a long way each day to collect water from a distant well, which is about two to three kilometers distant. This again has a telling effect on the health of the people. They do not have access to any health care and have to travel to Triambakeshwar which is ten kilometers away for medical help.

Many children, especially girls cannot attend school because they must stay home and help their mothers carry water each and every morning for their family’s daily needs.

Water is the most essential element, next to air, for the survival, protection and development of people around the world. Though India is richly endowed with this natural resource, droughts and unsafe drinking water takes a devastating toll on the health and lives of many. Numerous disorders are caused by unhealthy water. Water available for consumption and other uses is only a small proportion of the quantity available in rivers, lakes and ground water. And sadly, this water is also contaminated with pollutants and consistent negligence by the people. Water in its unpurified form would contain protozoan parasites, toxic chemicals or harmful viruses.

India would be a fully developed nation only if her villages bloom and the people in the tiny hamlets have access to clean drinking water, good sanitation and basic educational facilities. Sow The Seed - India is contributing towards achieving this overall growth.

Around the world, hundreds of millions of us share a similar morning routine that’s dominated by water. We wake up in our homes and walk to a nearby room containing a toilet, sink, and shower or bath. We use the toilet, wash our bodies, and brush our teeth. We make our way to the kitchen, where we fill a kettle or pot with cool water to brew our wake-up cup of tea or coffee. In much of the world, however, this is not the routine. Daily life is marked by a lack of access to clean water, sanitation facilities and hygiene resources. This three-pronged problem constitutes the core challenge in the lives of billions worldwide.

Instead of turning on a tap in their homes, countless people must fetch their water for drinking, cooking and washing from crude, unprotected wells or straight from rivers, dams, lakes, canals and ponds. The sanitation statistics are even grimmer: almost three billion people lack access to improved sanitation facilities, such as flush or composting toilets. Instead they use buckets, bags or open pit latrines, or they simply practice open defecation in bushes, fields and other unprotected public areas, both rural and urban.

Water, sanitation and hygiene issues influence socioeconomic conditions as well. Women and girls who spend hours every day fetching water can’t attend school or earn money. A lack of private sanitation facilities discourages girls from attending school, especially as they reach puberty. Teachers can’t teach and farmers can’t work when they’re infected with waterborne diseases that incapacitate adults. Untreated human waste affects fish, aquatic mammals and vegetation.

Will you help provide a village with clean water? Please bless a village with a well by donating $1,000. We will be delighted to send you a report with photos. We also believe that God wants to bless those who bless others and if many people give a little, great things can be accomplished through Him. If you wish your donation to go towards providing a well, please indicate that on your giving form. Thank you and may God bless!

For more information, email: info@sowtheseedindia.org