I was happy to report at our April 14 club meeting (image above) that our global grant application for the Nepali Water Project has been awarded! The preliminary steps were time consuming, and included pulling the initial application together in Nepal and then submitting the application for review by the Water and Sanitation Rotary Action group (Wash Rag). Wash Rag came back with several significant steps to add and some other suggestions. The project now is more than just providing water from a source over an hour to two hours away, but also includes a plan to impose a fee upon recipients to build sustainability of the system. The village will maintain the system using the funds received by the fees and train individuals in proper maintenance of the system itself. As to the users of the system, the school and the village will provide water and sanitation training and education. Nepal is part of the Third World countries where open defecation occurs. This sanitary system hopefully will be a driving force to educate the population in proper water and sanitation processes.
In addition, the women and young girls will not be required on a daily basis to walk to the source of the water and carry it back to the village. This allows the women to engage in micro-credit businesses, and the young girls to attend school for the full day.
Examination of the proposal by Wash Rag allowed them to issue an additional grant in the amount of $2000 to assist with the project
To put it briefly, after consideration of extensive reviews, we submitted a detailed application to the Rotary Foundation, which was the final step in the process for securing the grant!!!
The drinking water problem in Nepal is a multi-faceted issue that affects millions of people throughout the country. After the 2015 Nepal earthquake, the problem of drinking water became more severe as many old tanks got damaged and were not suitable for use. In many cases, the water source dried up, which not only created havoc in society but also forced many people to migrate.
The Rotary International Grant Application for this project was prepared by the Rotary Club of Dhulikhel in Nepal. Our club is serving as the U.S. partner with them on the Dhakalthok Drinking Water Project. This village is in Mandandeupur Municipality of Kavre, Nepal. After the 2015 earthquake, the water system was damaged. The people in the area have been transporting drinking water from a distance of 1.5 km. Women spend around 40-60 minutes to fetch the water. The goals of the project are to provide sustainable access to clean drinking water for underserved communities in Nepal, build and rehabilitate the water supply system that ensures the availability of safe drinking water, promote community involvement and education on water management and hygiene practices, and reduce the prevalence of waterborne diseases through improved water quality. The project will include infrastructure development including construction of 50 water tanks (each holding 1000 liters) to provide drinking water as per World Health Organization standards and pipeline and tap construction to bring water to 50 households with 326 members. It will also provide community education and training, monitoring, evaluation, and formation of of a Water User Group and Mandandeupur Muncipality commitments to ensure sustainability. As noted above it also includes a plan to impose a fee on water recipients to build sustainability into the system.