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Greetings! We just finished working on an introductory video that will tell you a little more about our 10 school initiative in Delhi. Let us know your thoughts.
Greetings!
I recently got back from visiting our schools in Delhi, India. While there, I admit I toggled between being overwhelmed by the desperate need in some of our large urban slum schools and experiencing a renewed zeal to tackle what we have set out to do at Water Centric. I reminded myself that to make any difference, given the 2.5 billion people in the world lacking access to basic sanitation, you always have to start with a first small step in the right direction!
The good news is that we have made significant progress in our goals these past 18 months. Take a look at our new December newsletter which highlights this progress and touches on some ways you can get involved. We hope you enjoy the video clip where young girls sing in their colorful scarves about hygiene education: yes, washing their hands is important. Enjoy!
Warm wishes for this holiday season,
Lotika
Link to newsletter
The theme for the evening was water and sanitation – or more precisely the lack of water and functional toilets in millions of children’s lives. The event was titled “Turning Social Chatter into Water.” On October 27, Boston’s Tantric India Bistro was a lively venue where people wanting to help the world’s most needy children, chatted, sampled Indian hors d’oeuvres, and heard the compelling story of Water Centric’s work in Delhi, India.
A selection of short videos were shown showing children washing hands and lunch dishes in a decrepit water station; little boys and girls packed like sardines in a tiny classroom, without a single chair, desk, or sink and in some cases without any functional toilets; young school girls wearing colorful scarves, singing about washing their hands!
CEO and Founder, Lotika Paintal, shared firsthand accounts from the world’s most needy children, and answered questions about what Water Centric is doing to help them. Clean water, functional toilets and hygiene education are critical to stopping the cycle of poverty. Find out how you, too, can be part of solving this critical world challenge by hosting a Water Centric reception and presentation. Visit www.watercentric.org to find out more.
Turn Social Chatter into Water!
WHEN: Tuesday, October 27, 2009
TIME: 6:30 – 8:30 pm
WHERE: Tantric India Bistro
123 Stuart Street
Boston, MA 02116
Get informed, inspired and engaged. You are invited to a discussion on the global water/sanitation crisis. Did you know, 1.1 billion people lack access to clean water 2.6 billion people lack access to toilets … and of course this is leading to a huge health crisis!
Yes, we can all do something to change the status quo. Come spend a social evening with Water Centric at Boston’s Tantric India Bistro. Water Centric’s founder Lotika Paintal and other team members will be there to share an insider perspective on the global water/sanitation crisis and what Water Centric is doing about it. Read more at: http://www.watercentric.org
Cost: $20 – includes a drink, hors d’oeuvres, and a great evening! Feel free to bring friends.
“I would get permission to lock all but one of our school toilets and then charge kids at school 10 cents every time they had to use it, so they would realize how important toilets are to kids who don’t have them,” said one creative middle schooler. “Then I’d donate the money to Water Centric to build a toilet for kids in slum schools in India.”
Kids from all over Metrowest Boston learned about “flying toilets” * and water stations during three presentations by Water Centric, as part of the Education and Leadership for a Nonviolent Age (ELNA)’s Annual Leadership Conference of middle schoolers on October 9, 2009. The kids then brainstormed creative ways to organize fundraising events from pumpkin festivals to tag sales so that kids in other parts of the world could have clean drinking water and toilets.
ELNA member middle and high schools are in Natick, Lincoln, Maynard, Shrewsbury, Hudson, Harvard, Westborough, and Lunenburg, Massachusetts in an initiative to encourage children to demonstrate leadership skills, social awareness, and civic responsibility. To learn more about ELNA, click on http://www.elnacollaborative.org/ELNA/Welcome.html
* A ‘flying toilet’ is a plastic bag that gets used as a toilet and is then thrown out the window into the street!
Water Centric finished renovation on a water station for school kids at the Julaina MCD School in Delhi. The old and decrepit station was no longer functioning properly. It leaked, the drains were easily clogged, the foundation area was moldy and unhygienic, it lacked a suitable shelf to collect the water, and there were insufficient taps.All that is in the past. Thanks to funds raised by H2O For Life and Water Centric, and for supervision of the project by its local partner Sakshi, the children have good access to clean water with a renovated and fully functional station. Now, the kids don’t have to get wet in order to get a drink of water and the station is no longer a breeding ground for mosquitoes. The kids are proud of their new facility!
You can follow the progression of this project in our photo journal below. Water Centric was launched in February 2008. Its first initiative is to help provide clean water, functional toilets/sanitation and hygiene education to 10 Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) schools. This project serves the needs of 10,000 students, most of whom come from the poorest and most deprived communities.
In February 2009, the Principal of the Molar Band MCD School in New Delhi, explained to Lotika Shaunik Paintal, founder of Water Centric, how the construction of a small septic tank can make a huge difference in the lives of a 1000 young school girls:
“I am so grateful that Water Centric will be building a septic tank for our school. Our toilets, although constructed four years ago are unusable, as the city sewers still do not extend to our school. The new septic tank will allow our 1000 students to maintain their dignity and get some privacy by using toilets –instead of squatting outdoors as they currently do every school day to relieve themselves!”
Water Centric wasted no time. The septic tank was completed in less than 2 months while the school was closed for summer recess. Funds were raised in the USA with help from H2O for Life and the Asian Club at Chelsea High School. The Molar Band School in New Delhi also made an in-kind contribution. Meanwhile, Water Centric’s NGO partner in India, Sakshi, made sure that the construction process went smoothly on the ground.
The facilities are now operational. The 1000 students have resumed classes after vacation – and are finally able to access functioning toilets for the first time ever.
Water Centric is very pleased that five schools in the United States through the organizing efforts of H2O for Life have partially sponsored five of our Delhi schools.
This spring students from Brooklin, Maine’s second and third grades started writing letters to its partner school in India.
The kids were very excited to make a connection with the school and children they were supporting.
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In Delhi the school children were equally excited to get these notes and to learn that kids their age had helped provide the funds to improve their school. They responded with heartwarming letters of gratitude.
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My name is Saiba. I am studying in Class Vth. I am 10 years old. I like to do cleanness. Before this programme our school was very unclean but now the condition is changed. Now everyone have neat and clean. You have done a great help for our school, very-very thanks. |
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My name is Hazra. I am 8 years old. I am in class IVth. I am thankful to you. Before your support my school’s condition was not clean and now condition is going better. I will again write letter to you. Thanking you. |
We hope this intercontinental dialog will continue to build bridges between these kids and enable them to better understand the international challenges of water, sanitation, health and hygiene.
Did you know that diarrhea kills more children than Aids or malaria? Diarrhea is a serious issue in developing countries.
Because human feces can carry 50 communicable diseases, they are an efficient weapon of mass destruction. Half of the hospital beds in sub-Saharan Africa are filled with people suffering from what are generally known as water-related diseases.
Clean water supplies are only part of the solution. Solutions need to include more sanitary systems, vaccines for rotavirus as a standard for children in the developing world, and less open defecation. Author Rose George emphasizes that sanitation is the most cost-effective disease prevention tool we have.
Water Centric believes that better hygiene education is at the core of reducing water borne diseases in school children thereby increasing their performance and attendance in school. A Hygiene Education program also helps change behavior, such as making washing of hands before eating and after going to the toilet routine. Children carry many of the key messages home, slowly improving the quality of lives in their homes and communities.
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Working closely with our partner NGO, Sakshi, Water Centric has formed hygiene clubs in all 10 Municipal Corporation of Delhi schools that it has been involved in so far. At each school, Sakshi met with teachers and instructed them on how to organize and involve school kids in these clubs. |
| The children in the hygiene clubs are learning fundamentals of hygiene and the importance of following good hygiene practices. The children in the club have roles and responsibilities for keeping their peers informed and their school clean. |  |
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Recently teachers from five of our schools published a joint newsletter with contributions and articles written by the children. |
| We view these clubs as an effective way to involve the children and to teach them responsibility for their hygiene and the maintenance of the facilities. |  |
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