Initiatives around Water Supply and Sanitation
Bringing about transformation in behaviour and lifestyle requires constantly engaging with the community, generating a demand for the creation of structures for water and sanitation from the villagers themselves by helping them understand the link between lack of hygiene and economic loss, and handholding villagers through the planning and construction processes
S hrambhukia village in Balliguda looks surreal amidst the valley. The beautiful terrain, the surrounding green forest and the ever-flowing waterfalls enhance its view. Four small hamlets together comprise the village Shrambhukia, a part of Rutungia gram panchayat. The village, connected to the main road through a kuccha road, is approximately 16 km away from the block headquarters at Balliguda. The village has a population of 161, distributed in 38 households, and the villagers are all from the peace-loving Kandha tribe. The Kandhas used to practice shifting cultivation and are mainly dependent on forest produce for their survival.
PRADAN’s engagement in the village started in 2003, with the promotion of women SHGs mobilized around savings and credit. PRADAN initiated goat-rearing and Siali leaf plate-making because the village lies on the fringes of a forest. The village also falls under the OTELP (Orissa Tribal Empowerment and Livelihood Programme) area of implementation. One of the components of the programme was developing infrastructure in the village along with micro-watershed development. The focus was to develop a model ‘homestead development with round-the-year agriculture’. During the planning stage in the village, the whole community was engaged. Because the village has access to two perennial sources of water, this could be channelized to the homesteads and the fields through a flow irrigation system. The idea was well accepted, especially by the women who faced the daily drudgery of bringing water for household consumption by trekking 3–4 hours a day to fetch water either from the jhara (waterfall) or the chuan (subsurface water stream near the upper catchment). Keeping in mind the pressing need to alleviate this drudgery, a holistic plan was finalized, with the community’s participation, to channelize water effectively to homesteads for use in households through a gravity flow system. The women were very excited and keen to initiate this project. Thus, Shrambhukia became PRADAN’s pilot village.