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MAKING THE DIFFERENCE

WaterAid highlights a project that is helping communities in Nepal.

Nepal is a very beautiful country with rich culture and heritage. However, it is also one of the poorest countries in the world and lack of access to water and sanitation poses a serious threat to health.

Lying landlocked between India and China, Nepal's dramatic landscape rises from the lowland plains of the Terai up to the peak of Everest in the Himalayas. After a decade-long violent conflict between Maoist, Monarchist forces and political parties that has claimed more than 13,000 lives and damaged the social and physical infrastructure of the country, Parliament has now been restored. However, the troubles continue and have added new challenges to development, especially in rural areas where most WaterAid-supported projects and partners operate.

WaterAid began its water, sanitation and hygiene work in Nepal in 1986 which has continued despite the political instability and conflict of recent years. Our activities with six partner organisations are vital as, without safe water to drink and somewhere hygienic to go to the toilet, childhood ailments like diarrhoea are killers. Every year approximately a third of all deaths in Nepal are children under five, half of which are due to diarrhoea.

Although it is estimated that 84 percent of people have access to water, in hill areas distances to water sources are great. These statistics do not take into account that wells are often polluted and the quality of water is affected by the presence of arsenic. More than 73 percent of the population does not have access to sanitation.

Many of the projects in Nepal focus on rural communities, such as those in the Morang district. One project in that area this year aims to provide drinking water, and improve the health and sanitation of the marginalised people of 12 villages. In these villages 415 existing shallow tube wells need restoration and 59 new shallow tube wells will be built.  

This project will enable 2,735 people to gain access to water and provide 3,826 people with access to sanitation. In the targeted communities access to both water and sanitation across the district are below the national average.

All of the people within the community are deprived and disadvantaged and live on or below $1 a day. Farming and daily-wage labour are the main occupations for people in these communities. Personal hygiene behaviours are not developed and the sanitation situation within the community is extremely poor.

As well as targeting immediate problems in communities, this project looks to the future by including sanitation and hygiene activities in schools. Schools without adequate sanitation find it very hard to recruit both teachers and students. Education, particularly for girls, is one of the cornerstones of development and the project acknowledges the importance of facilitating this education.  Teaching children about hygiene behaviour is also a fantastic way to reach a wider audience. Children take their newly-learned lessons home and share them with their families and communities.

It is also vital that WaterAid's projects are sustainable and that they provide a lasting benefit to the communities. To ensure that this is the case, WaterAid and its partners work to build capacity within the community to manage the facilities. This makes certain that the community has the requisite skills and resources to manage and maintain the facilities implemented by the project,
WaterAid projects empower the community and help to create jobs and economic opportunity. Working with Nepal Water for Health (NEWAH) to deliver this project, WaterAid engages with local partner organisations and communities to find that solutions are appropriate, low cost, and as sustainable as possible. Our partners have well-established relationships with local leaders and strong links with the community, enabling then to gain quickly people's trust and confidence, as well as an ability to influence local and national decision-makers.

The impact of safe water and sanitation reaches far beyond the obvious effects on health. Water and sanitation really do underpin education and livelihoods and form the first step in overcoming poverty, as Dhanu Maya's story shows.

Dhanu lives in the village of Chilaunebas, where WaterAid and NEWAH helped the community establish its own gravity-fed water scheme. The community had been waiting 23 years for the Government to put in the promised water supply.

It used to take Dhanu half-an-hour to walk to collect water; now she can collect it easily from one of the eight village taps shared by 73 households and the school. As well as using the water for drinking and washing, Dhanu waters fruit and vegetables that she can now grow in the garden next to her house.

Watermatic is holding an event on World Water Day, 13 March, from which proceeds will support the WaterAid project in Nepal.  Titled, 'From Drought To Deluge - Minimising The Impact', the day will focus on practical solutions for the intelligent use of water and feature presentations by selected leaders and experts.  Participants will include builders, planners, water companies, consulting engineers, landscapers and celebrity gardeners, as well as innovative suppliers and companies who 'walk the talk'.  For further details contact info@watermaticltd.co.uk This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .