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Supplying water pumps to the poorest districts India

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Orphans in Need has now embarked on a major project to provide safe domestic water, sanitation and hygiene education, to Jharkhand, an area of eastern India, with an acute need for these basic necessities. The aim of the project is to provide water pumps to vulnerable communities, allowing access to clean drinking water in the vicinity of their own villages. The pumps are designed to ensure safety to users as well as eliminating any potential issues of livestock contamination, by making them hygienically safe.

India is a huge and diverse country, where over 170 million people do not have access to safe water and 69% of the population (690 million people, 10 times the entire UK population), lack adequate sanitation. As a result, 600,000 children under five die from diarrhoeal diseases every year. According to the World Health Organisation, around 80% of all sickness and disease in the world is caused by inadequate water, bad sanitation and poor hygiene. Not only do these problems cause sickness and death, but they also increase health costs, reduce people’s ability to earn a living, and reduce school enrolment rates. Shortages of water can also lead to harvest failures and even famine. All these factors combine to contribute to the continuing stranglehold of poverty that affects many nations like India.

Jarkhand is a district in the eastern state of Bihar, one of the poorest in India. Many women and children spend many hours a day, often walking up to six kilometres, in the pursuit of bringing clean water for themselves and their families. This is an exhausting task, which takes up valuable time and energy, prevents women from carrying out other vital work, and children from going to school. In many instances, even the water they eventually collect is contaminated, thus creating further demands on communities already in desperate need of assistance.