WATER FOR LIFE...

Last year’s unprecedented floods are still haunting people. Though water has receded from most parts of the flood affected areas, a lot has to be done in terms of restructuring. According to reports, floods are estimated to have affected at least 33 million lives. More than 3,451 kilometers of roads have been damaged and 149 bridges have collapsed, leaving little option to locals for escape let alone access to life essentials and clean drinking water. While the flood water is gradually receding, the stagnant contaminated water is causing several health risks for the inhabitants.

Women are the biggest victims of this crisis as they are the ones responsible for fulfilling the water needs of their families. Their day starts and ends with sourcing and collecting water. They are also the ones to drop out of school because of not having enough facilities of water and sanitation in their communities and in their schools. Whereas, children often get sick with dangerous and life-threatening water-borne diseases because of drinking extremely contaminated water. Women generally live a compromised life and are also married off at an early age in these communities making them further vulnerable to life-threatening conditions, especially while giving birth and is worsened due to not having access to clean and safe water.

“When flood entered into our village last year, it took away all what we had. We lost our crops and lands. Roads were vanished and there was water everywhere. We were compelled to drink contaminated water (as water was mixed with dirt in hand pumps) which gave rise to many water-borne diseases such as gastro-enteritis, typhoid, diarrhoea, vomiting and hepatitis etc,” tells 42-year-old Safia, resident of Ali Mohd Jokhio Village, Thatta, Sindh.

“After the floods life became stagnant. It became difficult for us to do our daily chores as there was water in our houses and we couldn’t even go to our kitchens. There was no clean water for us. We didn’t know where to go,” narrates Aneeta in her mid 30s, another resident of Ali Mohd Jokhio Village.

“For us life is not easy. We have to face a lot of problems. We don’t have gas in our village; we have to burn wood in order to make chapatis which in itself is an ordeal. Then water is our main issue. Last year’s floods have made our lives more difficult – leaving us with no choice but to drink muddy water mixed with dirt,” elucidates Asiya, a 34-year-old inhabitant of the area.

“Besides other problems, we, women, are facing a huge problem i.e non-availability of toilets in our village. Everyone needs to go to the bathroom and just imagine our situation when we have to get out of our houses just to fulfill this basic need. There is water scarcity too. Taking bath is a luxury for us. We can only take bath once a week,” shares 24 year-old Laila. “Last year I got really sick after drinking dirty water since we did not have access to clean water,” she adds.

According to a recent report published by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), more than 80 per cent of Pakistanis face ‘severe water scarcity’ for at least one month each year. The report stated that Pakistan ranks 14 out of 17 countries designated as ‘extremely high water-risk’ nations.

Providing relief aid in Thatta District, Sindh…

In order to provide flood relief aid to the neglected coastal communities in Pakistan; Indus Earth Trust, not-for-profit organisation working in the area of sustainable development, has partnered with The Coca-Cola Foundation. The Foundation is supporting relief efforts in Thatta, Sindh, for approximately 1,000 households. They are providing food, shelter, mosquito nets, WASH facilities, hygienic kits, and basic shelter support to flood-affected families.

In addition to providing basic relief goods, under this partnership, the communities are providing with safe drinking water facilities. For this, Bondh E Shams, a global water charity organization, has been on boarded. Using their innovative, affordable, scalable solar-powered all-in-one water pump and filtration system, they are installing the Solar Water Boxes, called the OASIS Box, in communal places. To further make access to clean water easier, the project is also providing H2O water wheels by Tayaba.org to the women for easier collection.

“The sheer scale of damage across Pakistan owing to the recent catastrophic floods is unprecedented. To help those affected we need a united response. We are committed to building sustainable shared communities and these joint efforts with the Indus Earth Trust are a part of that commitment,” said Fahad Ashraf, Vice-President of Coca-Cola Pakistan, while inaugurated Solar Water Box in Ali Mohd Jokhio Village, Thatta, Sindh on 2nd February 2023. The inauguration ceremony was attended by representatives of media, Indus Earth Trust, Bondh E Shams, Tayaba Organisation, Coca Cola team and a number of local men and women. Water wheels were also distributed among women on the occasion. It was a delight to see happiness on faces when local women received water wheels. “I used to fetch water from far-flung areas carrying matkka on my head. It was a tiring chore. Now, we don’t need to carry heavy water buckets on our heads. We can easily carry water with the help of water wheels,” exclaimed 50-year-old Bachai.

“The recent floods in Pakistan have shown to the world that tackling climate change and environmental degradation needs to be our collective top priority. It impacts not only all aspects of our lives but our survival as a species. Our vision is to work for the development of neglected coastal communities by maintaining their sense of dignity. For this, partnerships with organisations play a key role in reaching to the maximum number of these communities,” expressed Shahid Sayeed Khan, CEO of Indus Earth Trust, who was also present at the event.

The background:

Established in 2000 to aid neglected coastal communities in Sindh and Balochistan, Indus Earth Trust (IET) works mainly in 6 districts in the Sindh and Balochistan provinces of Pakistan, mainly along the coast covering approximately 900 kilometers covering 13 Union Councils and approximately 392 villages. IET has previously partnered with Coca Cola and UNDP to provide potable water for up to 30 villages in interior Sindh. This project provided water on tap for the very first time to the beneficiaries, using solar pumps to extract the water and pump it to an overhead tank, for distribution as close to households as the communities require.

They also launched a water replenishment project in Kohistan Union Council Area - Thatta district. The aim of this project was to help conserve and replenish ground water as well as harvest rain water for the inhabitants to use, with special focus on the local women.

Many local community organizations within the villages in the Kohistan area have been formed. This is based on the idea that community involvement in the planning and execution of project goals leads to more effective and equitable development.

While shedding light on their present project in collaboration with Coca Cola Foundation and Bondheshams, Afia Salam of IET explains, “We have been working in the field of livelihood, water, women economic empowerment, so we get to know the needs of different communities.

This partnership came about in the aftermath of 2022 floods. Because Sindh has been badly affected, and we have this on-going partnership with Coke Foundation since 5 years, we asked them if they had any flood relief programme and they said they would like to help people in Thatta. They gave us a grant of more than one crore for relief distribution that included tents, mosquitoes net, hygiene kits and feminine kits as well as food items. But people also needed clean drinking water, so we connected with Bondh-e-Shams and decided to install Solar Boxes in bigger villages at the outskirts so that people from other small villages could also get access to that water.”

Water wheels – a great initiative

Water wheel, known as ‘H2O wheel’, is an excellent intervention by Tayaba organization, founded in 2016. To date, the organization has successfully distributed thousands of H2O wheels across Pakistan. Distribution of water wheels among women of Ali Mohd Jokhio Village, Thatta, Sindh was a part of this great initiative. “This is a brilliant intervention because it has made life easier for local women. These women when they go to fetch water, they carry water on their head. There is a lot of burden on their bodies that also affects their health. Now, these water wheels will make this errand easier,” states Afia Salam.

Providing clean drinking water…

The southern region of Pakistan, mainly Sindh and Balochistan, has the most water-stressed communities relying majorly on unimaginable water sources such as self-dug water wells, potholes and surface water ponds. This dire reality inspired Hamza Farrukh, founder of the charity Bondh-e-Shams, and his team to help. The collaboration started right after the 2022 floods in Pakistan with Indus Earth working on sustainable solutions for the flood-stricken communities and Coca-Cola Foundation covering the funding side. Their solar water project is proving to be an immediate and vital source of aid.

Founded by Hamza Farrukh in 2014, Bondh-e-Shams is a global water charity and non-profit organization working on the provision of clean and safe drinking water to those around the world who lack clean water using an innovative, affordable, scalable solar-powered all-in-one water pump and filtration system, called the OASIS Box.

While talking about how this charity was founded, Hafsa Naeem, Country Director, Bondh-e- Shams tells, “Hamza on his seventh birthday was diagnosed with typhoid due to unsafe water in his village in rural Pakistan. He was among the lucky ones who survived and pledged to take action. He won a Davis Projects for Peace grant in 2014 while studying at Williams College, USA and created a solar-powered water filtration solution for his own village so no one from his village would fall sick from the water, ever again. Since then, Bondh E Shams has installed 81 OASIS Boxes in 5 countries (Pakistan, Yemen, South Sudan, Afghanistan & Rohingya Refugee Camps in Bangladesh), ensuring that the beneficiary communities have 15+ years long access to clean and safe drinking water.”

“Some of our defining projects were done during the recent floods in Pakistan, where we immediately deployed 20 OASIS Boxes to flood-stricken communities and used flood water as the source and turned it into clean drinking water. This emergency response was done in a 2-tier operational setup, where after the flood water receded, the same Boxes were deployed on a permanent water source within the same communities. So far, we have deployed 16 OASIS Boxes in Sindh in the off-grid villages of Omerkot, Thatta, Mirpur Khas, Noshero Feroz, Shahdadkot, Khairpur and Sanghar,” adds Hafsa.

While explaining how this system works, Dr Ammad Farrukh, Director Operations, says, “Our OASIS Box is an innovative, solar-powered water extraction and filtration system. Our OASIS Box has the ability to filter up to 10,000 litres of water per day and can cater to the water needs of a community of up to 5,000 people. Not just that, the Box can be deployed on various water sources and is adaptable to water contamination, Solar pumps exist elsewhere, but our technology is the only solution that brings the pump, filtration system, tracking technology and storage tank into a single modular unit that’s easy to install, sustainable, cost-efficient and transportable: perfectly suited for distant, water-scarce villages.”

“Having the Solar Water Box in our goth is such a blessing. The community is grateful to have clean water in our village, for years to come,” expresses Safia.

Commenting on the overall project Afia reflects, “Through this project we went beyond delivering the rashans. We created awareness among women regarding their hygiene. We know bathroom is a big issue so we have built bathrooms in those areas and still working on it. We have collaborated with Bondh-e-Shams for providing clean drinking water in Thatta district. We are concentrating on rehabilitation and reconstruction of the houses, damaged by floods. We are trying our best to uplift lives of women in rural areas through our projects.”

*Erum Noor Muzaffar is the editor of You! magazine. 

She can be reached at iram29@hotmail.com