NARUDA Project Plan
Through community consultation, NARUDA have set as their goal that every member of the community should have access to clean water all year round, with particular focus on providing safe drinking water for children and young people.
Due to the remote nature of Nagaland as well as the geographical location of settlements being located on hilltops, many habitations regularly experience severe scarcity of fresh drinking water, there is no flowing water available in the communities and people must trek downhill to access water for drinking, cooking and bathing. Furthermore, the dry season which extends from November to April means that villagers must travel longer distances to access water and, during the wet season, the water gets muddy due to overuse of water access points.
The mains water that was available from the government has been disconnected for many years and there are no known plans for future reinstatement of the service. During the wet season the water gets muddy and during the dry season, people have to trek further downhill to collect water as supplies dry out. Somehow, they manage, but the Director of NARUDA is particularly concerned by the lack of safe drinking water especially for the children he looks after and the local people who live around the area where NARUDA is based.
As part of the NARUDA community WASH consultation, NARUDA considered digging a well to provide all-year-round clean water, however due to the depth of drilling required the likelihood of successful drilling is low, in addition the provision of deep well digging can be cost prohibitive. Through the community consultation process, plans have been agreed to install a Rainwater Harvesting System which will provide clean water for the people of NARUDA and the local community. Not only will this project provide clean water but will give people more time to develop small businesses, so that they may better support themselves.
NARUDA carried out a tender process and invited local contractors to provide quotes for installing a central 20,000 litre tank. However, the cost was prohibitive, and it was decided to install local plastic rainwater tanks giving a more cost effective solution. If we are successful in getting funding , we hope to install the tanks at the beginning of the dry season in November 2021, with the project being completed by January 2022, well before the onset of the wet season.
The project will take approximately three months to complete and NARUDA will carry out the work using local labour. The whole NARUDA community will be involved in the development of the system and NARUDA volunteers will ensure that all community members are able to access water daily and, will monitor water collection and consumption.
