Self-supporting community- based mitigation program that provides arsenic safe water using modified dugwells along with public education on water related health effects.

  • Jane Liaw
    • Visitor
    • confidential
    Implementation Status: complete_unsuccessful Mon 08 Feb 2010, About 14 Years ago

    February 2010 site visits with AWS staff

    I work with Meera on Project Well, in our Berkeley office. My husband (who is unaffiliated with Project Well) and I were taken around by AWS staff to visit several dugwell sites in February 2010.

    This dugwell was not used. Someone dug a hole to build something. Water is organic, dirty. People are using the tubewell with arsenic (not for drinking, just washing). There is a deep tubewell that is far, that people use.

  • Impact Assessment (M&E) Phase Project completed on 31 Dec, 2008 Implementation Phase
  • Implementation Phase Project started on 1 Jan, 2008 Preparation Phase

Self-supporting community- based mitigation program that provides arsenic safe water using modified dugwells along with public education on water related health effects.

Other Issues

Unusual and unexpected issues faced during project execution

Research and Development is part of the project. Research and Development is part of the project. The arsenic level was 10 PPB tested on 30th June 2008. The Total coliform and Fecal coliform wereboth 'undetected'. Date of water collection for bacteria tests was on 6th December 2008.

Learnings

Knowledge of project and process for sharing

Need more dugwells in this area for the pressure is high on one dugwell.

Impact

People Getting Safe Drinking Water: 75

There are 16 benficiary families and 75 consumers now.The following are recorded in the register data: Male=31, Female=44 and children <5=11.

People Getting Other Benefits: 50


Health meeting and villages meetings have been organized in this community-based-group. The discussions were on arsenic health effects and personal hygiene. A training program on the maintenance of the dugwells (including chlorination) is given to develop a sense of ownership and to make the program sustainable

Maintenance/Operating Costs Annual, in US$: $40

Creating and measuring long-term impact

Implementer: Aqua Welfare Society, West Bengal, India

Aqua Welfare Society, AWS, is the partner NGO. Their office is based in the North 24 Parganas. The 8 honorary board members are located in Kolkata. There are only 5 field workers who are interacting with the villagers and beneficiaries, training the users on maintenance of the dugwells, organizing village meetings and health meetings. A technical advisor of AWS is based in Kolkata who visits the village occasionally and one awareness programmer who is in charge of awareness programs in the communities and educational institutions. There is an accountant and also a data entry person on part time basis.

Funding

Final Cost:
$909

Plan/Proposal