Safe water and sanitation for Indian villages
Making a real difference in someone’s life is an amazing experience. A group of volunteers from Xylem recently got that opportunity when they visited India as part of a joint project by Water For People and Xylem Watermark. Their reflections about the trip are now available online.
Since 2008, Xylem Watermark and Water For People have helped more than 575,000 people gain long-term access to safe water and sanitation facilities. Clean drinking water is a serious issue, as more than 780 million people worldwide lack access to an improved water source. Xylem Watermark, Xylem’s corporate citizenship and social investment program, aims to help make a difference.
As part of the partnership with Water For People, volunteers from Xylem regularly visit the locations where the organization has installed improved water and sanitation facilities. There they collect data about the facilities, meet with the local community, and share information about the water cycle and hygiene.
In August, thirteen employee volunteers from Xylem visited India as part of this project. Now on Xylem Watermark’s blog, Running Water, you can read about their inspiring experiences.
Xylem Watermark volunteer Kenny Khoo’s video showing highlights of the 2015 trip.
Highlights from the Running Water blog:
“The women and men I have met during the trip have been so proud of their pump – proud that they now have access to clean water and are less sick of diarrhea and cholera, but above all proud because they know that they can handle the pump and its maintenance themselves.”
– Ragna Hellblom, August 25, 2015
“The genuine smiles, the true curiosity and the full engagement from all the hundreds of students and teachers that welcomed us to this and all the schools we visited were just amazing.”
– Christian Thollin, August 31, 2015
“We then spoke with a local entrepreneur about the business of sanitation devices, and how he gives solutions to his customers and advises them. They offered us soft drinks and I even rode on a bike belonging to one of the boys in the village! I learned that people can be so happy with so little and recognized how we sometimes complain because of very small things.”
– Viviana Loyola, August 31, 2015
“The highlight of the day was the opening of a newly constructed drinking water point. One of the most humbling moments was when we were told that people worked all night prior to make the footpath to the water point accessible for us to walk because the rainy season had turned the road into deep mud.”
– Ewa Jaroszewicz, September 2, 2015
“The menstrual hygiene program implemented in the school was even taken by the Indian government as a model for implementation on the national level!”
– Sylvie Haugeard, September 4, 2015