Jal Sahelis - Women 'Water Friends' of Bundelkhand UP India Scripting Success Story

Jal Sahelis - Women 'Water Friends' of Bundelkhand UP India Scripting Success Story

There are no dearth of inspiring, path-breaking positive success stories. There  are no dearth of such determined people who have the ability of translating impossibility into possibility. But such stories relapse into background, only  negative stories are cycled, recycled on  the TV channels. 

Let us go to the drought-hit Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh India and see for ourselves how a band of women water warriors digs its own wells, takes up rain water harvesting , even chases the District Magistrate for a handpump - after tired of the long daily treks for water. The long treks to fetch water had led to deformities in the women and even premature abortions. The children would always have fever and diarrhoea and sometimes cholera and malaria. It was an unending cycle.

Image courtesy: hindi.oneindia.com

There is an NGO who has been working in this region for the last many years. Parmarth Samaj Seva Mandal has brought together a band of sisters called Jal Sahelis. They are actively working in creating and conserving sources of water in the drought-prone villages of the region. Today there are more than three hundred women water warriors across one hundred fifty villages in the arid Bundelkhand region. These Women water warriors or jal Sahelis have been working with their communities to build check dams, install handpumps, dig wells and adopt water conservation techniques to tide over the torture of traumatizing summer.

Image courtesy:parmarthindia.blogspot.com

The crusade and cussedness of these jal sahelis are now paying off - leading to the end of the long trek to the well that has long been defining their lives, standing up against all odds even their own husbands. For the first time in years, these villages have enough water through the scorching summer. Now children of these settlements have enough time to study and their parents have enough water for animals and their fields.

Not only that. The villages now grow wheat, peanuts and sesame, and also vegetables - taking a giant step towards sustainability for the first time in years & years. 

The jal sahelis have not just heralded a revolution in water management but in women empowerment  and also in eradicating water borne diseases in women & children.