India site visit – December 2010

Building local capacity to address the water and sanitation crisis in rural India

In December 2010 Water 1st staff traveled to India for our semi-annual partner evaluation visit. Most of our India visit was spent outdoors, traveling by foot, ferry boat, motorcycle, and rickshaw to communities that have participated in the water, sanitation, and hygiene-education program of our local partner, APS. Since 2006, Water 1st has funded 33 projects in India benefitting more than 14,000 people.

Thanks to Water 1st supporters, the residents of Giripara, India now have safe water and toilets

Our first stop was Giripara, a community in the Namkhana "block" of the district of 24 South Parganas, West Bengal, where a project was completed in 2010. We met with the Giripara water committee, the group that is responsible for pump operations and maintenance. This group of women received training in routine operations and maintenance activities from APS, and they were able to demonstrate those activities for us: opening the pump cover, greasing the chain and bolts, and making sure all bolts are tight.

Giripara water committee members show us how they have learned to remove the hand-pump cover and do routine greasing.

Sustaining Giripara’s new hand pump

Over time, parts on the Giripara hand pump will wear out, which will require purchasing replacement parts and probably hiring a local plumber for installation. The Giripara water committee is collecting a monthly fee of 10 Rupees from each household in order to build up a savings account to pay for these eventual expenditures. This is no easy task, as the Giripara water committee is already discovering. Some families would rather wait until the pump needs a part replaced, and pay at that time.

This story probably sounds familiar to a lot of American households too, who know they should build up savings to pay for that eventual roof replacement or sewer-relining project, but instead spend their money on things they want today rather than saving for some unknown, future event. The difference is that most Americans have credit cards or can take out small loans, or find other sources of funding for unplanned expenditures. Subsistence fishermen in India do not have these same options, and therefore the risk is that the repair will not be made and communities will again have to rely on distant, polluted water sources for their domestic water supply.

For now, when the water project and encouragement from our local partner organization is fresh in their minds, most families in Giripara are paying monthly. We will check on this community again in future years to see if they continue to contribute.

Members of the Giripara water committee pose for our cameras and laugh when we surprise them with the Bengali word for “smile” (hash-aye).

Maximizing health benefits with toilets at each Giripara household

We then visited every single toilet beneficiary in the community, to see that their toilets were, in fact, built, to see that they were constructed well, and to view their loan documents. We found that the majority of toilets were constructed, but the toilet contractor was a bit behind schedule. He is a local mason, and like the cobbler's children who have no shoes, the toilet at his house and his brother's house were the ones with the most construction work left to do. We will follow up with these households next year to make sure this work does get completed.

Toilet beneficiaries will repay 40% of the toilet costs over the next four years, and repaid toilet loans will go to fund more toilets in the village. Even though this is a rural area, it is still densely populated when compared to the rural areas of other less-populated countries where we work, Honduras and Ethiopia. Thus, our project beneficiaries value the privacy that their toilets bring as much as the convenience of clean water. We often hear from villagers that the demand for APS' toilets is greater than the demand for wells. We can understand the demand for the toilets. APS' toilets are well designed: the use of a water seal and non-vented pit decreases bad odors and can effectively isolate pathogens from the human environment.

Over the next four days we continued to visit with project beneficiaries in several different villages, following up on recent and past work.

"I love my toilet because health is wealth." – Community Member Nooty Sabal

Nooty Sabal is very happy to have the privacy of this new toilet. Previously, she had to find a secluded place in the village, which was unhealthy and embarrassing

At Water 1st, “sustainable” is not a buzzword

In 2005, Water 1st chose APS as a partner because we wanted to help a less-experienced organization build significant capacity to undertake water and sanitation projects. APS, or Akshayanagar Pallisri Sangha, means "Association of Village Groups in Akshayanagar." APS was formed in 1989 under the leadership of Dr. Basudeb Giri, a medical doctor. Dr. Giri's father was also a medical doctor and social worker. When he died, he requested that his son devote his career to helping the poor rather than working for wealthy families in Calcutta. Dr. Giri honored his father's wish and with a group of social activists founded the organization to help the poor people of West Bengal.

APS has received funding from a few international aid groups, but the funding was never consistent and thus they were never able to build a comprehensive water and sanitation program. Many potential partner organizations are similar to APS in that they have positive, trusting relationships with communities and good intentions, but need more experience and feedback to develop a truly sustainable program.

This effort to help build APS' capacity has not been easy. We have all worked hard, and with five years of partnering, we are able to look back and see significant improvements in a number of jointly-identified areas, such as:

Training of water committees in hand-pump operation and maintenance
Training of beneficiaries in hygiene education – beneficiaries are able to recite the important hygiene education messages, like hand-washing after using a toilet or before food preparation
Transparency and consistency of water point and toilet loans – beneficiaries are aware of the loan terms
Consistency in toilet and water point construction quality

Because of the consistency of Water 1st funding, APS now has a very good reputation in the region where they work. When Cyclone Aila hit West Bengal in June 2009, all of the Water 1st-funded water systems continued to function on the heels of the devastating storm. That did not escape the attention of the communities or the government. Recognizing APS' abilities in this arena, the government contracted APS to travel to 292 villages to rehabilitate their government-installed drinking water wells and perform water quality testing in their new water quality laboratory. APS Executive Director Dr. Giri told us, "If it weren't for Water 1st funding, we wouldn't have been in a position to help."

Although Water 1st is not directly involved in disaster relief efforts, our consistent support of APS insured that a well-trained, local resource was in place to provide help when disaster struck. A local resource is always the most effective and capable responder in such situations. We enjoyed watching a film they made of the rehabilitation of one of the government wells.

In 2008, APS received a grant from UNICEF to build a water quality laboratory. In this lab, their trained lab technicians are able to test Water 1st-funded projects for important contaminants (like E-coli and arsenic) as well as provide ongoing, routine testing for all government water systems in the area.

The APS water testing laboratory

Most recently, APS received funding from the World Bank to build several water projects at elementary schools.

We are very pleased that because Water 1st has consistently funded APS' water and sanitation program, allowing them to improve their program, retain qualified and experienced staff, and build important relationships with local government and other potential donors, they have been able to provide valuable services in the region like disaster relief, water quality testing, and school-based water projects.

Water 1st in India:

The nuts and bolts, literally, of well-drilling in India

Our projects in India utilize groundwater for domestic water supply to meet the drinking, cooking, and washing needs of community members. Deep wells are drilled and India Mark II hand pumps are installed. These hand pumps are common in India, and spare parts are readily available.

Our partner organization, APS, hires local well-drilling contractors who use the same drilling principles as drilled wells in the USA but rely on human power for the drilling!

A steel drilling bit is attached to a 20-foot pipe section which is then rotated by the drill crew while drilling mud is pumped down the center of the pipe.

One or two men walk round the central axis turning the drilling pipe, and the weight of the combined pipes provide the necessary downward force.

The rotating drill bit loosens soil which is floated up the outside of the pipe by the drilling mud to the surface. As the drill goes deeper, additional pipe sections are attached.

Once they've reached a depth of 1,000 feet, all of the piping and the drill bit will be pulled back out of the well. Well screens will be attached and the pipes will be re-installed down the well. This activity must be performed very quickly before the open hole collapses.

Each hand pump serves about 30-50 families, and are partially financed by the villagers themselves through a revolving loan fund. Water 1st pays for 60% of the costs of the water points. The villagers pay the remaining 40% of the costs over four years. Repaid loan money is then used to construct additional water systems and toilets.

Purposeful evaluations help create an environment of constant program improvement.

We call our in-country partners our "partners" because we consider them our colleagues. These are professional organizations that have demonstrated their abilities to work effectively with poor people to permanently solve the water and sanitation problems in their communities. Although we provide the funding for their work, we believe it's important to conduct our evaluations with respect and some amount of humility. We have years of field experience, and we approach our partners and projects with open minds and the ability to discern what works and what doesn't.

Our field visits are the best time to collaborate and engage with our in-country partners. We can share our reactions with one another, and have open and honest conversations about how their work is going, the challenges they face, and what Water 1st can do to support their growth and development. If we both feel there's an area that needs improvement, we discuss how to implement the change.

There's also the human side. When the staffs of our in-country partners have done exemplary work, they are proud of their accomplishments. Getting positive feedback from the donor is a great reward for them and a motivator to maintain high standards.

It's important to us that our partners genuinely support any adjustments we discuss. We are setting ourselves up for failure if our partners are implementing programs in a manner they don't believe in just for the sake of pleasing the donor. We often tell our partners that we appreciate it when they express their disagreement with us, opening the doors for a truly honest discussion of issues. Over the years, we develop a close and trusting relationship with our partners because they know our feedback is given in the spirit of wanting to provide the best projects for people in need of safe water and toilets.