Water Project Nepal 2022 -23
A village called Deuralitar.
Deuralitar Water Project - Nepal
Rotary clubs of Portland, Dorchester Poundbury and Casterbridge and the Okhle Village Trust joined forces to install a water supply system to a village called Deuralitar in a remote area of central Nepal.
Water is plentiful during the three month rainy season but limited during the dry season. However, access to water is difficult. Villagers, mainly mothers and children, carry water for drinking and cooking from their local spring to their house, often uphill. This can often take up to an hour for one container of water and repeated many times a day. For personal cleanliness and washing clothes, this is all done at the spring.
We agreed to fund a project to improve their access to clean water in 2022. A group of us visited the village in February 2023 when completed. Work was undertaken by the villagers which encouraged taking ownership.
This comprised of building a large concrete tank adjacent to their spring to collect water. As this was well below the village, an electric pump was installed which carries the water to another new storage tank above the village. Pipes then lead downhill and gravity takes the water to a tap outside every house. This means that people no longer need to carry water up to 40 metres uphill - equivalent to a staggering 12 storey building!
The time saved prompted one to say, "now our children can go back to school and the farmers back to the fields". Due to the sheer physical effort involved another lady** said how grateful she is, as "she has heart problems and this has transformed her life". There is also water for irrigation of crops, improving the economy of these subsistence farmers. Health and sanitation is improved firstly by having a clean source of water and secondly education in the schools on hygiene is then reflected at home.
The spring is below much of the village (1) and therefore needed a collection chamber (2) at the spring itself, a lower concrete tank with electric pump (3)supplies a 20,000L concrete tank (4) above the houses.
There would be one main tap by the community centre.
