: Comprehensive Rural Health Project (CRHP)

Welcome!

By Blue Planet Network Posted on Fri 05 Nov 2010, about 14 years ago

I met Dr.Arole at the conference organized by Gram Vikas and SDTT. Very impressed with their other work over 3 decades and they are learning from Gram Vikas and WOTR about water and sanitation. Being endorsed by those two organizations is the best entry into PWX.

Look forward to getting their water history onto PWX.

Welcome!

By Comprehensive Rural Health Project (CRHP) Posted on Tue 23 Nov 2010, about 14 years ago

Thank you Rajesh, we look forward to participating in PWX.

LEarning from the pilot projects

By Gram Vikas Posted on Sat 06 Nov 2010, about 14 years ago

Dear Dr. Arole,

It would be very interesting if you could highlight some critical learnings from the 2 water and sanitation projects implemented by CRHP and how do you plan to expand in the future?

Chitra
Gram Vikas

LEarning from the pilot projects

By Comprehensive Rural Health Project (CRHP) Posted on Tue 23 Nov 2010, about 14 years ago

Over 50% of the population in Jamkhed migrates once a year. This makes it difficult to schedule the building of projects and ensure sustained community participation.
Both, in Mandwa as well as in Vaidvasti, we introduced the program at an inopportune time. In both cases, the program was introduced just 2 months before the communities were ready to migrate. By this time, they had exhausted their own funds and were not in a position to, or motivated to financially or otherwise support the program. Also, in cases where funds were not collected upfront, it became difficult to trace the families later to collect them. This contributed to the delays in completing construction in both Mandwa and Vaiduvasti.

When building or introducing this program to other communities, it is a must that the majority of the work is started as soon as they return from migration. The timing of introducing the program is extremely important. When people come back from migration, they still have money and are willing to invest it in a program that will benefit their families. Also, to ensure that all families are equally invested in the project, it is important to collect funds upfront.

Difficulties are experienced in finding skilled local masons
It has been challenging to find skilled masons for the construction work in each community. Initially, CRHP sent some masons from the local villages to Gram Vikas for training in construction of bathrooms, toilets and water tanks. However, these individuals were unwilling to stay long enough in Orissa due to the large amount of time away from their families. They were unable to acquire the necessary skills to carry the work properly when they returned to Jamkhed. Later, it was decided that experts from Gram Vikas should come to Jamkhed to support the construction work.

Difficulties in construction of soak-pits and toilets
Another challenge we faced and are likely to face in the future is that this part of the country has very little top soil. During construction of soak-pits, we hit hard rock at about 3 feet. This makes it extremely difficult to build proper soak-pits. WE circumvented these problems by changing the design which also brought down costs. We expect to face this problem as we expand this project to other villages in this area, and will continue to adopt these new designs.

Another alteration that was made to the original plan was in the roofing of the bathrooms and toilets. The original design for the roofing of the toilets and bathrooms was to use cement slabs. We learned that this was extremely expensive and decided to use galvanized metal sheets. This brought down the cost substantially and also helped speed up the process of completing the construction work.

Alterations to the project design, though sometimes essential and cost-saving, tend to cause conflict in the community. As far as possible, it is best that alterations are avoided mid-way through the project or a strategy is devised to ensure that any significant change can be made at the start of the project and agreed upon by the entire community.

Inability to contribute funds
In every community, there are always a handful of people who find it extremely difficult to pay Rs1000 for raw materials because they are so poor. In the planning stage, these families have to be taken into consideration.

Unexpected heavy rainfalls cause delays in construction work
Although most of the villages that CRHP works in are drought prone, there is occasional heavy rainfall. This causes the roads to become fairly inaccessible and it becomes difficult to transport raw materials. Storage of raw materials becomes a challenge leading to wastage. This hampers construction work and further delays work.