DSK, Water 1st’s partner organization in Bangladesh, sent in a great story with their most recent quarterly report. In the Tarabo Hatipara neighborhood of the sprawling Demra slum, the common practice by local contractors has been to sink drinking water wells to a depth of 90 – 130 feet. Wells at that depth aren’t always free of pollutants (like arsenic) or deep enough to produce consistently during the dry season. For those reasons, Water 1st’s partner DSK set its own standard years ago that requires all wells to be at least 200 feet deep.
Contractors hand-drilling a well in Kamrangir Char slum of Dhaka, Bangladesh, a neighborhood too densely populated to bring in a drilling rig.
The challenge is that the contractors who actually install the DSK wells are not always convinced that it is necessary to go down to 200 feet. When the community hires a contractor to install the well, the contractors frequently try to convince the community to save a little money and just dig down to about 120 feet. The communities are responsible for repaying the cost of constructing the well, so they are often interested in minimizing the construction costs, sometimes to the detriment of the long term performance of the well.
So DSK took two steps to solve this ongoing problem. First they went into the community and talked to residents about the benefits of digging deeper wells. While the community members were receptive to the messages, they had a difficult time committing to the extra expense of drilling more than 200 feet. They found one woman, Moyna Begum, who was willing to give it a try. When they completed Moyna Begum’s 240-foot deep well, they invited the neighbors over to her compound to see the results for themselves. They tried the water and noticed a difference. After the visit to Moyna Begum’s place, four groups decided to proceed with their own deep wells.
Water 1st's Steve Deem (left) discusses construction of water systems with Akhtar Jahan (center), the civil engineer in DSK's Pallabi slum office, along with Ranajit Das, DSK project manager, in December 2009.
The other approach that DSK pursued was with the contractors themselves. DSK organized a training for well drillers at which they discussed all the strategies for constructing a protected drinking-water well. Thirty-four contractors attended the training and improved their knowledge base in the practice of installing wells. Now the contractors have a better understanding of the reasons behind all the standards DSK has established for the drinking wells installed through their program. This has reduced the amount of conflicting information that the community members receive as they embark upon the important venture of installing their own domestic water supply.
We think this story demonstrates the importance of working through a strong local partner organization. The issue of shallow wells arose during our site visit in December 2009. We noted a few examples of wells that were less than 200 feet deep. DSK was with us and we discussed it as an issue at our wrap-up meeting. We left it to them to figure out what was happening and how to correct it. Six months later, DSK had done the research on the problem and developed a solution that would address it at the demand-side (community members) and the supply-side (contractors). This characterizes our relationship with DSK over years and demonstrates why they are a trusted and valued partner in this endeavor.
