Water for Life program seeks to make clean water, hygiene and sanitation available to the neediest communities across Bangladesh. Today a large number of Bangladeshis are still forced to drink and use polluted water for cooking & washing, or lack basic hygiene and sanitation facilities which result in the spread of otherwise preventable diseases.
Supporting in Rural Area Bangladesh is a country with approximately 160 million people living in an area of 148.393 square kilometers making the country one of the highest population in the world. Over 80% of the population of Bangladesh live in the 68,000 villages of this agrarian country. Villages lack good sanitation and clean drinking water and are beset with numerous problems including health and sanitation. In cities, there is usually some sanitation system in places but the system suffers from many inadequacies and cannot be regarded as intrinsically much better. In the villages, there is no sanitation policy at all. Consequently, people of the villages use and drink water from any source available around them and, as such, are the acute sufferer of many water-borne diseases. The most common category of water-borne disease is represented by diarrhea.
There are two major types, watery diarrhea and dysentery. Cholera is the prototype of severe watery diarrhea. Typhoid fever is caused by another group of bacteria carried by water. Influenza, viral diseases, and cough/cold are also common. Diarrhea and other gastrointestinal diseases are caused by pathogens that are water-borne or are carried through the medium of water.
These diseases account for nearly a quarter of all illness in Bangladesh, about 12% by diarrhea and 10% by other gastrointestinal illness including enteric fever. Thus water plays a major role in the overall disease profile of the country. The hard-core poor people especially the women and infant children are the acute sufferers of waterborne multilateral diseases. Clean water is the prerequisite for reducing the spread of water-borne diseases. It is well recognized that the prevalence of water-borne disease can be greatly reduced by supplying of clean and pure drinking water and safe disposal of faces. Although the situation of use of safe drinking water and hygienic latrine increased in both rural and urban areas due to decades of awareness programs and recent hand wash campaign among different stakeholders including school children, the situation is still alarming compared to need. In order to check widespread water-borne diseases and the recent escalation of skin disease called arsenicosis, it is high time we strived for helping the poor and needy to use safe drinking water and sanitary latrine. Objectives of the Proposed Program To improve drinking water situation in the selected areas. To improve sanitation situation in the selected areas. To prevent water-borne diseases. To develop health and hygiene awareness among community members. Project Activities Installation of tube-wells at the households/other selected locations. Installation of sanitary latrines at the households/other selected locations. The arrangement of health and hygiene awareness sessions in the selected locations. Target Beneficiaries Flood affected poor people of southern districts. Drought affected poor people of northern districts.
Orphanage/school/College/Market premises. Other public places like road-crossings, marketplaces etc. Project Implementation This is an ongoing project. We shall record and document the project by taking photographs of distribution and installation ceremonies, listing the name of beneficiaries, preserving the vouchers and relevant papers of purchase and procurement and reporting from the level of a field to H&K head office. In addition, the Executive Committee will directly supervise the project intensively. This project implemented in close coordination with the district and local administration. The broad list of beneficiaries as well as sites for sinking tube-wells and installation of sanitary latrines will be selected through field level survey and the social leaders and community workers are consulted to identify the most vulnerable areas and beneficiary groups/locations. Monitoring and Supervision of the Project H&K have 5 years experience of planning, implementing and monitoring of sinking tube wells and relief and rehabilitation project. It has well established an internal administration, personnel, financial as well as reporting systems. The H&K central Executive Committee is responsible for overall administration of the project. From the Head Office, the concerned project management unit is directly responsible for overseeing the program. At the field level, project coordination unit is already set up to plan, implement and monitor the progress of the project. All documents are preserved for the benefit of the donors. Conclusion Safe drinking water is nowadays a movement. Safe water is a key component in determining the quality of lives. Today, people of our country are concerned about the quality of water they drink. People are experiencing severe disruption to their normal lifestyles and to their environment. The Large scale of migration is taking place due to the shortage of safe drinking water. If we can install at least 1,000 hand tube-wells and 1000 sanitary latrines in the remotest and vulnerable areas through this program, we will be able to protect the vulnerable children, women and poor people from many dangerous and infectious diseases. H& K seeks to implement this project in line with UN campaign for use of safe drinking water and sanitary latrine and also in pursuance of worldwide hand wash campaign. As a partner of Bangladesh government, our roles will contribute to the fulfillment of our Government’s commitment to this end under Millennium Development Goals.