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A Million Wells for Bangalore: Restoring Water to the Indian City

A Million Wells for Bangalore: Restoring Water to the Indian CityAbout 12 million people currently live in the fast-growing Indian city of Bangalore, also known as Bengaluru. The Bengaluru Development Authority estimates that that number may reach 20.3 million by 2031. Bangalore’s increase in population exacerbates an already severe water shortage. Fortunately, the non-profit Biome Environmental Trust has started a new initiative to combat this issue: A Million Wells for Bangalore.

A Million Wells for Bangalore aims to employ Mannu Vaddars, traditional well diggers, to dig a million wells around the city. The initiative empowers Mannu Vaddars who have struggled to find work while ensuring that Bangalore residents will have an adequate water supply.

Water Usage in Bangalore

For thousands of years, Bangalore’s residents depended on open wells as an important source of water. Rain refills the open wells that are tapped into underground aquifers and runoff from nearby lakes. But during the 1880s and 1890s, improved plumbing brought water to the city through pipes. Around the same time, a cholera outbreak contaminated many of the city’s wells, and they fell out of use.

The city’s abundant yearly rainfall used to naturally fill aquifers and wells, providing residents with necessary water. However, pavement now stops rainfall from filtering into the ground. As a result, rainwater runs off of buildings and into the surrounding areas. Today, the city relies on water piped from miles away. The nearest water source is the Cauvery River, which is 63 miles to the south.

Additionally, many of Bangalore’s residents receive water from bore wells, which extend over 200 feet into the ground. However, bore wells refill with water very slowly, so overuse of a well renders it useless for years. As the city’s population grows, more and more bore wells have dried up, leaving residents dependent on piped water and insufficient water tanks.

Mannu Vaddars

Mannu Vaddars have dug Bangalore’s open wells throughout history, using traditions that are passed down through generations. They dig easily rechargeable open wells, ensuring that the groundwater in Bangalore remains stable. Today, around 750 Mannu Vaddar families live in and around Bangalore. Together, they have the capacity to dig up to 1,000 wells per day.

In order to dig a well, seven or eight Mannu Vaddars work together for three days. They use a string to measure a circle with a radius of around three feet. Typically, one member of a team will dig while the rest pull out dirt from the deepening well. Mannu Vaddars dig until the well has reached a depth where water trickles in. Aside from the use of cement to form the walls of the well rather than stone, the practice has not changed much over centuries.

A Million Wells for Bangalore

The initiative A Million Wells for Bangalore is working to solve the city’s water shortage by turning to the traditional skills of these Mannu Vaddars. By hiring the Mannu Vaddars to dig shallow “recharge wells,” the initiative provides residents with wells that are quickly refilled by rain and groundwater. The head of the initiative, Vishwanath Srikantaiah, estimated that if Mannu Vaddars increased the city’s open wells to a million, 50-60% of rainwater could be returned to the wells and to the ground. The result would be both environmentally and financially positive. Floods and run-off would decrease, and water would be cheaper.

The initiative was launched in 2018, and it helped the city’s Mannu Vaddars find more work in their field. As demand for recharge wells grows, so does the demand for Mannu Vaddars’ skills. Bangalore currently has 100,000 open wells, so reaching one million wells will take considerable effort and time. But if Mannu Vaddars can help dig 900,000 more wells, Bangalore could become self-sustaining in terms of water. Residents would enjoy a greater quality of life.

– Sarah Brinsley
Photo: Flickr

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Sisters Fold Origami and Raise $650,000 to Build Wells

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Every year about 842,000 people die from diarrhoea that causes dehydration and more than 840,000 people die from a water related disease each year. Worldwide, there are 750 million people who lack clean water access, which is more than twice the size of the U.S. population.

On average, it costs between $12,000-$15,000 to build enough wells to support an entire village of people. Five thousand dollars builds one well and provides enough water for 500 people. The costs include constructing the wells, preparing the community for the water project, and then monitoring and evaluating.

In 2011, Katherine Adams, age 5, and her sister Isabelle Adams, age 8, learned about the millions of people who go thirsty every day and about the girls who haul water all day instead of going to school. Therefore, both girls put their origami folding skills to use to raise money to build a well in Ethiopia.

With the help of their dad, they held an origami sale at a Starbucks in Dallas, Texas in order to help thousands of people without water. After eight weeks of selling origamis, the two girls raised more than $10,000, which is enough to benefit an entire village.

It has been almost four years since they started folding origamis, and the two sisters–now 9 and 11–founded an organization called Paper for Water that has hundreds of volunteers and helped raise more than $650,000. That is enough money to create clean sustainable water for about 63 to 65 villages or 32,000 people.

The origami ornaments are not easy or simple to make. The average ornament they make takes one hour and one volunteer took 22 hours to create a single ornament.

Globally, it would take about $20 billion to solve water and sanitation problems, which the girls believe is doable. Their origami ornaments are for sale online ranging from $10 to $100 per item and give you an option to donate without getting an origami gift.

 

– Donald Gering

Sources: Good News Network, Paper for Water, UNICEF, Water.org, The Water Project

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Motorbikes Role in Reaching the UN’s Millennium Development Goals

Motorbikes Role in Reaching the UN's Millennium Development Goals
UNICEF donated 73 motorbikes to nonprofit organizations to help them better and more effectively monitor and implement their water and sanitation projects in Sierra Leone. These projects are to build or revamp wells and sanitation spaces in communities, schools, and health centers.

By giving these nonprofit organizations access to motorbikes, UNICEF is hoping to help reach the UN’s Millennium Development Goals by 2015. The motorbikes are thought to help by accelerating the efforts being made to improve access to water and, thus, contribute to the push for anti-poverty that the Millennium Development Goals are in place for.

As of now, only 57 percent of people in Sierra Leone have access to clean drinkable water with access to such water in rural areas being much rarer than in more urban areas. Accordingly, only 48 percent of people have access to clean water sources in rural areas, whereas 76 percent of those living in urban households have access. A significant amount of water consumed in rural areas is sourced to surface water, which is vulnerable to a multitude of waterborne diseases. This makes it imperative to improve water conditions and provisions and rural areas. The motorbikes will help make this possible by enabling NGOs to bring life-saving facilities to areas that are very remote and hard to access. They will also cut down on the amount of time necessary to get from local to local, allowing for NGO members to monitor their projects faster and easier.

Earnest Sesay, Director of Family Homes Movement, one of the NGOs that received motorbikes from UNICEF,  said “On behalf of the implementing partners of UNICEF WASH, I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation for this donation. With these motorbikes, the hurdles of reaching out to remote communities will be a problem of the past.”

– Angela Hooks

Source: AllAfrica