Home | Rehabilitation | Districts | Projects | Success Stories | Donors | Sponsor an Oorani | Updates

Home >> Updates

DHAN Foundation - Philanthropy Updates: Feb.'08 - Jun.'08

With pleasure we share the progress made in February-June 2008 with your support.

This issue takes you through

• Oorani
  • Status
• Field visit of Huguenin Ralapalli Foundation
• Alumni in action: A PAN IIT water initiative
• Farm pond
• Community Resource Centre
• Rural Electrification
• Madurai Marathon
• New projects
  • Safe drinking water
  • Development tour
  • ICT for poor

Oorani Updates

The localized water harvesting structures like Ooranis continued to be the sustainable solution to the drinking water problems of the areas suffering from saline ground water and depending on surface water harvesting sources for drinking. It has proved to be true that Ooranis secure a special space in the thirsty hearts of the rural people.

Venkata Krishna Swamy from Kalugasalapuram is a delighted man after tasting the water in the bore well. He says that the oorani renovation work at Kalugasalapuram literally added tons of sugar to the bore wells around the oorani. Yes, the oorani deepening work done through our project could store sufficient water from the monsoon rains. This has brought down the salinity in the bore wells around the Oorani. The water now in the bore wells are very much useful for drinking, which has reduced the drudgery of women in fetching water for the household.

A village woman sharing her feelings about the project ” it took two to three minutes and around few 10s of strokes to get water to flow from the bore well previously and we got nothing more than air from many of the bore wells during summer and now it is June, the hottest time here. I could not believe that I can get water flowing from the bore well with a single stroke. Thanks to the generous support of the Oorani donors”.

It is interesting to see that many of our ooranis are brimming with water with the monsoon as well as unusual summer rains. The efforts of village community and the field team completing the earth work worth deserves appreciation as it helped to catch the current year rains to meet the water needs of the project villages. The village community celebrates the moment of having access to safe water that too during the peak summer months. At the same time water in the oorani ponds restricts proceeding with the finishing works in few of the projects such as inlet, steps construction and fencing.

Imagine, every day, having to figure out how to pay Rs. 2.50 per pot each time you needed drinking water. Alternatively, if that’s not affordable, you must walk almost 2km a day to the nearby town of Periya Palaiendal to collect the water needed for your family. Sometimes you have to balance the water on your head while carrying your child under a blazing sun.

This is what the villagers of Keelathillai Endal, a small hamlet in Keelathillai Panchayat in Ramanathapuram district face daily.

Similar such villages have been identified and about 9 new oorani works from Mananadurai (3), Thirupulani (5) and Mudukulathur (1) and have been featured in the oorani web site. The second phase of Oorani need identification survey has revealed that Ooranis could be one of the preferred solutions for the drinking water needs of Manamadurai in Sivagangai district and Thirupulani in Ramanathapuram district.

HRF field visit to Ooranis

Four Ooranis supported by HRF has been a success. The people from Neerkundram, Nediyamanickam, Athanakuruchi and Ulaiyur Nadukudiruppu share their heartfelt thanks for the support of HRF. Mr. and Mrs. Krishna, Mr. Sharma and Mr. Rao of HRF visited the completed ooranis and dedicated it to the village community. The opening ceremony of Oorani and unveiling marker dedicated to the memory of the donor’s beloved was highly emotional and memorable event for the donor.

Project Highlights

The Work Status

There are 11 more ooranis awaiting funds and more than thirty villages in the row to reach out. The IIT Alumni has taken up ten water projects which include two of the featured ooranis at Oorivayal and Arasakulam.

Read more about the Oorani project

Ramya’s friends are again in action mobilizing funds for another oorani at Saveriyarpattinam. They have contributed an amount of Rs. 83,100 so far for the oorani. The contribution of 8650 USD from the Rural India Learning Journey team for Senkottaipatti oorani was received during the period as spontaneous adoption of this oorani by the visiting team. It was highly encouraging to get a support of Rs. 5,56,839 from Mr. Atin and Fleur Kukreja for our water initiatives. This fund will be used for villages which are ready to take up the works in this season itself. We discussing with the villagers to finalise the water projects that would be taken up.

Read more about the Oorani Donors

Top

Alumni in Action: A PAN IIT water initiative

Ram Krishnan the man behind the E- Velayuthapuram oorani project which helped to kick start the oorani project is back with accelerated pace to pitch the cause of water project to the next level. His passion for the cause has been instrumental in creating a new initiative on water with the Pan IIT Alumni. The idea was to take up water projects with the alumni support in partnership with DHAN and the community. The identified projects would be completed and the impact and contribution of the alumni in making it possible would be show cased as a model for other alumni to see the difference it can make at the upcoming PAN IIT conference at Chennai in December 2008. The appeal for this initiative got spontaneous responses from the Alumni all over the globe. Around 50 alumni within India and overseas with a commitment to support the projects financially or as a volunteer to do the field visits and provide field reports.

An IITian says it is all for WATER, which is going to cost us, lives in future …..

Based on the pledges raised and the plan to complete the projects before the conference, 10 projects have been taken up which includes drinking water ponds, farm ponds and renovation of small scale water bodies like tanks etc.

Support a Farm Pond - Restore Livelihoods of a Family

Community Resource Centre

The Community Resource Centre at Sanarpatti has started functioning with increased energy and enthusiasm among the members. Thanks to the support of Mr. Vinod Aachi, this helped the members to have the most awaited resource centre a reality at their federation. The centre has been used for various needs of the members such as training on SHGs, business and livelihood skill building, web and net access, etc. It also used as computer training centre, evening study centre for the member children, and various business development and livelihood enhancement activities of members.

Top

Top

Madurai Marathon

The Madurai Marathon, a run for thematic awareness and action programme is conducted annually by DHAN Foundation. This event brings people from various sections of the society such as general public, academic institutions, corporates, employees of business houses, resident associations, etc. to partner in bringing desirable changes in the society. The event also raises pledges for the cause. As part of it we could raise an amount of Rs.5.5lakhs, with which we are taking up renovation works in the water bodies, basically to preserve these living heritages to serve generations.

We are very happy that many of the academic institutions and business houses in Madurai coming forward to adopt around 8 water bodies for its upgradation and upkeep works.We have taken up temple tank renovation work at Immayil Nanmai Tharuvar temple, Madurai and the members of DHAN Foundation promoted SHG federation adopted a tank work at Puliyankulam and done Sramadhan (contributing human labour) demonstrating their concern for the cause. Similarly 5 such SHG Women federations are raising water funds at federation level to safeguard water bodies. The water literacy programme conducted as part of Madurai Marathon has brought significant improvement in knowledge and importance of water and water bodies among the school children. We are currently working on developing more water literacy materials and upscale the programme.

Visit our Madurai Marathon web site.

Top

New projects

Safe drinking water

The most vulnerable people in India, the poor, are the most severely affected due to lack of safe drinking water. Less than half of the rural population receives water from the tap, the rest relying on handpumps, wells, and surface water bodies the census report says. The majority of these sources are untreated, and may contain harmful bacteria and viruses, as well as heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants, and chemical contaminants. Most rural people have limited means of purifying this water before consumption, and therefore suffer from waterborne illnesses. Without money for treatment, sickness can severely impact these people’s livelihoods, and for millions of children, cost them their lives.

DHAN has been working on addressing drinking water issues in South India since 1993. We recognize that many rural communities have the desire and determination to improve their drinking water situation but are constrained by lack of money, information and appropriate technology etc. DHAN raises funds to support these communities in their activities to bring safe drinking water back to their communities through the renovation and construction of new ooranis and the introduction of bio-sand filter or ceramic filters for water purification based on context. DHAN is working with CAWST and DSM to promote two technologies for safe household treatment of water which are effective and affordable by the people.

This initiative has received Rs. 1lakh support from the individual contributions from the members of development tour from Canada in July’07. Similarly a socially concerned visitor from Canada, Mr. John Gunn and Ms. Holly Gunn and his family has extended Rs. 1 lakh in Feb’08 to support supply of bio-sand filters in rural areas.

Read more about bio-sand filters.

Top

Development Tours

DHAN’s Centre for Facilitating Philanthropy also facilitates the foreigners and NRIs explore the rural part of India and learn about the development issues and positive action by communities to address them. It is interesting to see that people get involved in the development initiatives in the field and spontaneously respond to it. Unlike a common recreational tour, it feeds to the people heart and takes them close to humanity and a sense of giving back to the society.

Top

ICT for Poor

The information and communication technology for poor is another area of DHAN’s work. As part of it we have been establishing Village Resource Centre at remote places to connect the unreached with the technology to access information and build knowledge system. These Village Resource Centres acts as information and resource hubs catering to various needs of the rural segments of the society such as proving e-education, computer literacy, web and net access, using public address system and networking for information exchange, providing information on government schemes, etc. These centres are networked and connected to the information resources of agricultural university, meteorological stations, health institutions, which enable the rural people have video conferencing and consultation with the expert teams and local expertise available in the community.

Read more about ICT for Poor

Top

To partner in changing the lives of needy

Kind hearted well-wishers

Get in touch with

Centre for Facilitating Philanthropy

DHAN Foundation www.dhan.org & dhan@md3.vsnl.net.in

DHAN Foundation Home | Ooranis Home | Oorani Projects

© Copright DHAN 2006.