Happy world water day 2015!
As everyone is gearing to celebrate world water day tomorrow, I am taking this opportunity to share some good news from the slums in Ratna Nagar municipality in Nepal. I was there last week to visit the communities, to sign MOU with the local government for a slum upgrading project at Salghari community and to attend inaugural programme of a recently completed housing project at Laurighol community. Definitely upgrading slums have provided communities with improved and secured housing and better access to water, sanitation, hygiene and other facilities such as road, communal space and more.
I visited few slum communities and I was extremely pleased and happy to see that seven slum communities have been provided with access to piped drinking water facility in Ratna Nagar with the support from municipality. This is the first time that municipality has come forward to support the slum communities for their easy access to improved basic facilities. I was happy to note that the sense of satisfaction and happiness in the tone of the municipal official who explained me about their initiative to lay down the drinking water pipe line in the slum communities. The local women's saving and credit cooperative, supported by Lumanti, has provided necessary credit facility to the users to get the private connections. Unaware about the world water day and not realising that they should be celebrating for having a private and /or shared connections, the women leaders in the communities wanted me to to see each and every tap that they are in a process of getting properly installed. I think their joy and happiness reached at the height when they shared me their stories that brought change. I have attached few photos of the recently installed piped water connections from few slum communities.
I also visited an initiation of the local youth group - fish farming! Water was collected from a small stream to create a pond for fish farming. This fish farming was not only generating some income for the local youth group, but also contributing in recharging ground water and conserving water bodies. This local youth group, with the sole interest of earning some money with fish farming, unknowingly they are making a very important contribution to their community. The other day, our honorable minister for Urban Development, Dr. Narayan Khadka, while inaugurating WASH EXPO in Nagarkot, spoke about the challenges of water sources drying up. Definitely a real challenge. He also urged and encouraged the sector players to serve the people. Some where in the distant corner we see a small light lit up with the initiatives, like by those youth groups helping us to see the possible solutions to the challenges.
May we have hundreds, thousands and millions of success stories every year justifying the celebrations of the world water day !!!
Happy world water day 2015.
Written By: Lajana Manandhar, Executive Director, Lumanti Support Group for Shelter
Written By: Lajana Manandhar, Executive Director, Lumanti Support Group for Shelter