Supporting 7 Villages

Project location: India, Madhya Pradesh
Project start date: November 2008 - Project end date: October 2010
Project number: 2008-12
Beneficiary: HARITIKA

 

Haritika is a NGO which works with people whose lives are dominated by extreme poverty, illiteracy, diseases and other handicaps. With multifaceted development interventions, Haritika strives to bring about positive changes in the quality of life of poor people living in Bundelkhand region (central India) in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Haritika is actively involved in promoting dignity and gender equity through social, economic, political and human capacity building of poor people, by encouraging changes in national policies on the issues of poverty reduction, water and sanitation improvements and social progresses. In fact, Haritika promotes the long-term sustainability of the rural water supply and sanitation sector by supporting and working with the local governments in identifying and implementing an appropriate policy framework and strategic plan.

Haritika's main interventions aim at the following matters:
- Natural Resources Management: Managing the water system for irrigation and drinking, the land, the fodder, the forests, developing local and sustainable enterprises particularly for women, preparing the communities to manage their natural resources in a sustainable way ensuring gender equity in the access to them.
- Women empowerment: Providing equal opportunities to women and other vulnerable communities in the accessibility to decision making processes about natural resources, by empowering them through capacity building programmes.
- Water, Sanitation and Health Education: Creating awareness among communities about the hygienic practices; creating and maintaining the sanitary services in the Jhansi districts by a multi-sectored approach to health, with support from the United Nations Development Programme.

Haritika is working in seven of the poorest villages of Madhya Pradesh (India) by providing them access to water, sanitation and hygiene.
India is a vast country in which poverty remains pervasive. Recent statistics show that over a quarter of the population falls below the poverty line. Patterns of poverty vary, but most poor people (80%) live in rural areas and rely on daily-wage labour. Women, tribal people and scheduled castes and tribes are amongst the poorest groups.
The Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) and Under Five Mortality Rate (U5MR) recorded for the Madhya Pradesh are more than 70 and 105 per 1000 live births.
More than 50% of children under three are underweight and stunted, a reflection of chronic malnutrition in the region. Deaths of children under 5 are also accounted to diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections and malnutrition.
Villages have more than 1% sanitation coverage and the rate of increase is very low.



A fundamental component in both areas of this project is to build the capacity of PRIs (Panchayati Raj Institutions) to work with the communities in the implementation of projects, but also to facilitate their participation in decision-making processes, to increase their influence over policies about the poor and to strengthen their capacities to collaborate effectively with the government.
This will be achieved by meeting the following specific objectives:
- Implement water supply and sanitation projects. Seven villages will be supported in developing a model approach to deliver effective and sustainable community managed water supply, sanitation and hygiene promotion services.
- Improve the capacity of the seven PRIs to support the implementation of projects according to the model approach developed.
- Strengthen the PRIs and VWSC networks and community federations and facilitate their access to - and influence over - the district and local decision makers.
- Develop a scaled up model of Haritika's approach, in order to demonstrate how the recently introduced sector reform principles can be implemented, favouring disadvantaged socioeconomic groups. This will be achieved through accessing a community micro-finance and commercial credit.

The planned activities of the project co-financed by the Nando Peretti Foundation are:

- Build a sustainable community managed water supply systems, which responds to community needs and demands, serving a total rural population of 2383 people.
- Restore 21 boreholes with hand-pumps;
- Construct 15 rainwater harvesting systems;
- Construct 120 recharge structures;
- Provide compost pits to 165 families;
- Construct in the proposed seven village 384 individual household latrine with bathroom;
- Provide 83 families with kitchen gardens;
- Provide 223 families with soakpits / washing platforms;
- Promote community empowerment from an active participation in all stages of the project cycle and from an active decision-making with regards to the choice of technology options;
- Train 54 Village Masons and 7 Community Management Committees (VWSC) for each water supply system;
- Technically train each committee on maintenance and management (by book keeping, revenue collection etc.);
- Assign a caretaker to every water point, which is competent in, and responsible for, the collection of cash contributions, operation, repair and maintenance of the water supply systems;
- Integrate water, sanitation and hygiene promotion projects in 500 schools;
- Build and use 384 household latrines cum bathroom and seven school sanitary blocks.

At least half of the beneficiary population will have knowledge of the 5 key hygiene behaviours:
• Hand-washing at key times,
• Safe preparation and storage of food,
• Protection of water from contamination,
• Safe disposal of human faeces,
• Safe disposal of household solid waste and drainage.

think global, act local
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