Safe Water Project
Sun Flower has implemented Safe Water Project in partnership with Muslim Charity, Helping the Needy, UK, From 1 November 2016 to March 2017. Under this project, Sun Flower has installed 100 shallow water hand pumps, in which 50 hand pumps in Dinajpur Sadar Upazila (Sub District) of Dinajpur district, 30 hand pumps in Debiganj upazila of Panchagarh district and 20 hand pumps in Kalai upazila of Joypurhat district of northern Bangladesh. The average depth of the installed hand pumps is 66 feets, maximum 80 feets and minimum depth is 60 feets.
Beneficiaries are using the Hand Pumps
Within the 100 hand pumps 90 hand pumps are installed for household’s water supply purpose, where 4 to 5 families shared 1 hand pumps for their drinking water, bathing and other household purposes such as washing clothes and cooking materials. These hand pumps are also used for irrigation in the agricultural lands, mostly to the kitchen gardens. 3 hand pumps are installed beside schools, the students and some neighboring communities are the beneficiaries of these hand pumps. These also use for drinking water, bathing and other household purposes such as washing clothes and cooking materials. 5 hand pumps are installed in mosques to provide support to the 5-time prayers of the Muslims also community people collect drinking water from these hand pumps. 2 hand pumps are provided to community centers where community people and people from outside of the communities gather for rituals.
Beneficiaries are using the Hand Pump.
As well as Sun Flower installed 3 deep water hand pumps, these water wells installed 1 in Dinajpur Sadar Upazila and 2 in Chirrir Bandar Upazila of Dinajpur District. Average depths of these 3 water wells are 195 feets, maximum depth is 225 feets and minimum depth is 160 feets.
The 3 deep water pumps/water wells are installed in the location where community people faced challenged in collecting water during dry seasons. These water wells are using for drinking water supply, bathing and other household purposes such as washing clothes and cooking materials and also used for irrigation in the agricultural lands.
School Students are Celebrating World Water Day.
Project Impact:
As per our implemented project, it could be said that the hand pumps are a symbol women empowerment. Women are mostly the victim of water related stresses, as the management of family is entirely dependent on women including managing water. Women mostly collect water from the source, therefore they have the walk even 2 km to collect water at least for drinking purpose. We have seen 80% of the installed hand pumps are using by women. When a woman gets water source in nearer to their house, it will save her time and energy in collecting water, this saved time could be used for, look after their children and children’s education as they mostly do, on the other hand the saved time could be used for family level earning purpose as most of the beneficiary families are day labours.
In the local context, the high caste Hindu families don’t want to give water to low caste Hindu and Ethnic people, they think collecting water of the low cost may be hindering their religious purity. Within this Safe Water project about 3 ethnic families, 18 low caste Hindu families are benefited from this project. These hand pumps have the significant impact on praising their dignity and social recognition with having the own water source.