What a joy to be back in the remote Maharashtran village of Kahandol in time to celebrate the inauguration of their two new wells. Just four months earlier I had been standing on a dried up riverbed with my Indian colleagues, Shilpa, Sam and Akshay and the head of the village, Patil Ramdas Warde. Ramdas told us how the drought had brought great hardship to his village, with only 28 days of water, and he had asked us if there was anything we could do to help …
“We didn’t realize that our voice was so effective and strong!”
Change is happening and its infectious! The development changes we have seen in the last few months in Majukay, a community in Charsadda, Pakistan, were almost unimaginable 4 years ago when the community members set ambitious goals for being a healthy thriving society. It feels like a corner has been turned, and the change is gaining momentum.
"Only 28 days until the water runs out!"
“Only 28 days until the water runs out”, says Patil Ramdas Warde, the leader of a village in Maharashtra. Such is the plight of many tribal communities across the county. The lack of rain has led to major crop failure. Eighty per cent of the rice plantations have failed to yield a harvest. As the Patil – meaning ‘village head’ – shared his worries with us, the need of the Adivasi Village Project became increasingly apparent.
“Better than Nestle's!” - Clean water brings health to Pakistan community
By Jon Hargreaves
“You have lost me my business,” health clinic owner, Zahid jokingly tells HCR Pakistan director Hazeen Latif. He was speaking at the opening of the new drinking well in his village, provided by HCR, funded by an Australian church. “Since this well opened three weeks ago,” Zahid says, “I am selling less Flagyl because fewer people are having stomach problems.” With a smile on his face he says, “this water is even better than Nestlé's.” The well project was a result of a consultation facilitated by HCR which identified some of the main needs facing the community.
Schoolboy tries the clean drinking water from the new well in his village, KPK province, Pakistan
HCR has been working in this village in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province since 2013, helping the community understand and tackle their health and social development challenges. “It has been such a privilege to walk alongside this community for the last three years and feel like I’m part of them,” says Hazeen. “During that time we’ve seen some great things happen, like the medical camp that HCR sponsored with a local partner. We also sponsored a community cricket match and have done a micro-enterprise project, "he added,"but perhaps the most difficult time was when a nearby school was attacked by terrorists and I experienced the grief the community was going through."
HCR has been working in Pakistan in development and disaster response since 2013, with a vision of seeing whole of life transformation in some of the most challenging places in the country.
Well-digging in KPK, Pakistan is very manual (Video)
A water resource management student gets involved in...radio!
MSc Student, Joseph Thompson has just completed writing up his research which he conducted at HCR's partner project, Tana FM in Eastern Kenya during June and July. A student of water resource management at Wageningen (Holland) and Copenhagen (Denmark) Universities, Joe’s research addressed the conflict over resources in the region and particularly how the radio station, Tana FM, is playing a role in building peace by promoting dialogue, sharing knowledge and engaging all sides in the conflict.
During his time in Tana River, Joe worked closely with producers to make radio programmes to tackle some of the key themes that emerged during the research process which helped different tribes to better understand each other. In one programme on tribalism for example, participants in the programme took turns in teaching a proverb in their mother tongue to a person from another tribe, explaining the meaning of the proverb. Needless to say this resulted in a lot of laughter and a kind of “humanising” of the other side. Involving the wider community in the programmes promotes dialogue and understanding, a key HCR principle.
Joseph with Tana FM producers Zeinab Hussein and Galana Galole