Photo 1: Overwhelming beauty of village (Photo credit: Suraj S, WAN)
The event was very encouraging as Mr. Kedar Bahadur Joshi, Bajrabarahi VDC Secretary appreciated support of the organizations to organize the event focusing on water and sanitation. He expressed his commitment to provide necessary assistance in the cleaning campaign as well as in awareness campaigns for preventing diseases from improper water and sanitation services. He indicated that VDC can provide economic assistance to these initiatives if there is a higher participation of the villagers.
The campaigners were more motivated when Mr. Megh Raj Balami, Chief, Sub Health Post, Bajrabarahi also appreciated the support and committed to support in organizing other awareness campaigns for providing information to villagers on safe water, clean environment and preventable diseases. He committed that his institution can support in providing technical and other assistance to the villagers in water treatment so that villagers can benefit from clean water access.
Photo 2: Sharing appreciations and commitments (Photo credit: Suraj S, WAN)
It was observed that most of the villagers were based on agriculture and the water scarcity was not seen as the problem as there were some abundant sources of water. However, Mr. Sambhu Shankar Bartaula, Headmaster, Bajrabarahi Higher Secondary School raised concerns of water scarcity in schools of the villages. He added that youth and volunteers can be mobilized for raising awareness on safe water and hygiene behaviour to prevent from different diseases. Similar opinion was also shared by Mr. Pramod Joshi, Chairperson, Bajrabarahi Youth Club and Ms. Mina Maharjan, Chairperson, ESG.
EWP campaigner Mr. Anil Sthapit, Director, Guthi urged that water and sanitation concerns should be addressed before the community faces impact of unsafe water and sanitation scenario. He also discussed rainwater harvesting and water recharge schemes for sustain groundwater level.
EWP campaigner Mr. Tri Ratna Manadhar, NGO Forum expressed that urban water issues were more critical than rural ones. He shared his organization's experiences on conservation of traditional water sources. He also appealed the community members to support for celebration of the Sithi Nakha.
EWP Campaigner Ms. Shikha Shrestha shared adverse water and sanitation scenario of the country. She discussed briefly on approaches of End Water Poverty campaign and requested the community to join their hands for ensuring the scenario where water and sanitation would be accessed by all.
Photo 3: Sharing EWP Approaches (Photo credit: Suraj S, WAN)
Group exercise on water and sanitation scenario facilitated by Mr. Anil Sthapit revealed that the community was yet to experience acuteness of water and sanitation concerns. However, they shared that they were slowly facing the water scarcity issues and pollution caused by plastic materials. Potential actions covered areas of traditional water conservation, rainwater harvesting, awareness camps, cleaning campaigns, water treatment and waste management.
Photo 4: Lively Group discussions (Photo credit: Suraj S, WAN)
The campaigners visited Bajrabarahi Higher Secondary School. They interacted with some children and briefed on water and sanitation concerns. The EWP campaign materials especially EWP school name tags were also distributed to raise awareness of these children.
Photo 5: Children with old monument in their own classroom (Photo credit: Suraj S, WAN)
These events can be regarded as an initial step for spreading the EWP approaches in rural communities of the Tistung. The follow up of the campaigners together with the community strength would definitely create a good case of moving the campaign beyond Kathmandu.
Photo 6: EWP Campaigners in rural areas (Photo credit: Suraj S, WAN)
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