The construction of bore wells in remote villages in southeastern India will help villagers lift themselves out of a persistent cycle of poverty and disease.

TPRF has given $16,756 to the Sri K. Pitchi Reddy Educational and Welfare Society (SPREAWS) to drill and maintain bore wells in 15 of the most water-challenged villages of Andhra Pradesh State. The project will benefit an estimated 7,500 families. SPREAWS, established in 1994, is a grassroots nonprofit that works towards the empowerment of low-caste, tribal and other indigenous, marginalized people in Andhra Pradesh through the provision of basic necessities and education.

Many of the challenges facing these villagers — hunger, poverty, lack of education, poor health — spring from a common cause: a dearth of clean drinking water. Andhra Pradesh is drought-prone, and remote villages frequently have no convenient source of drinking water. The task of fetching water has traditionally fallen to women and girls, who must often travel miles to fill plastic pots and pails with water for all their households needs.

“Besides bringing domestic water, we have to work to earn family wages, and we have to do the hard, often tedious domestic chores of cooking, sweeping, cleaning, washing, rearing the children, collecting fire-wood, baby-sitting, buying the household needs in the markets, etc.” said Mrs. Rajeswari, a resident of Idupalapayi village.

The women trek across open fields and up thorn-covered, rocky slopes to reach the nearest water source, which may be a polluted lake or an unprotected open well meant for agricultural use. This daily task keeps the girls out of school and robs their mothers and aunts of hours of gainful employment. Chronic poverty and disease inevitably follow.

SPREAWS' solution is simple: drill bore wells to create a reliable local source of safe drinking water and train villagers in maintaining them. Well installation is accomplished in four phases: identifying water sources with the help of geologists as well as traditional water diviners; drilling the bore wells; well lining; and head works.

Next come maintenance and education. “The installation stage of a rural water-supply program is very easily achieved compared with accomplishing sustained maintenance,” says SPREAWS President C.J. Sajid Hussain. “The long-term success of any water program depends almost entirely on effective maintenance, and yet it is an aspect which is very often neglected.”

SPREAWS selects one “service-minded individual” from each village for training in maintenance and minor repairs of the bore well. For more complicated repairs, the nonprofit will help village leaders secure the services of an expert.

Using simple teaching aids such as flip charts, drawings, and photographs, SPREAWS volunteers educate villagers in hygienic methods to prevent diseases such as typhoid, cholera, dysentery, jaundice, and malaria as well as early detection of water contamination. This basic information helps villagers to regain health and gives them a practical hope of improving their lot.