Dear MembersPratinidhi and Safe Water India [SWI] are working on participatory principles to contribute towards people cente

Dear MembersPratinidhi and Safe Water India [SWI] are working on participatory principles to contribute towards people centered development processes. Lessons and experience drawn from different programs, grass roots issues and quality consciousness have always inspired us to struggle hard in order to prove our existence as a development institution. Point-of-use water treatment is uncommon in large parts of India. Qualitative research revealed the reasons for low use include lack of awareness of the effects of drinking contaminated water and of the safety of their water source(s), lack of acceptance, availability (particularly in rural areas and for POU devices and chlorine) and affordability of POU devices. Estimates show that the 180 million children under five years of age in India suffer from over 350 million episodes of diarrhea every year in addition to having other waterborne diseases. The socio economic condition of these areas is very grim. Nearly 50% of the population earns less than 1.25 to 2.5 $ per month (nearly around Rs. 1500/ per month). The slum areas are characcterized by unhygenic water and sanitary conditions. Bacterial contamination of drinking water is one of the main causes of diarrhea and other waterborne diseases. Poor families bear most of burden of these diseases, which includes mortality, morbidity and financial impacts. Over the years, the incidence of waterborne diseases, including, diarrhea has not come down.The intervention carried in the project area has tested a number of demonstration and operation research models and has become successful for the determination of scalable and sustainable strategies to increase penetration of POU water purification devices amongst the poor in India and worldwide.We undertook a pilot project with AED/POUZN support among 1500 urban slum families by linking them through self help groups, assessing their economic and drinking water and POU usage status. Pratinidhi then conducted water testing exercises and sensitized the families about multi point water contamination and then offering them various POU options like boiling, chlorination, SODIS and multi stage filters. Pratinidhi also provided these products to the interested families and ensured that they were using them regularly. To those families who wanted to buy filters but did not have the necessary resources for up front payment we provides our own Micro Finance as well as managed and counter guaranteed installment schemes from the distributors of filter manufacturers. We developed good working relationship with product manufacturers and also developed some Micro distributors. Now the scaling up intervention is being carried in 480 slums of Lucknow.The scaling up strategies ultimately aim to cover maximum of existing group and non SHG members for promoting the culture of using safe and drinking water amongst urban community by motivating them to use water purification methods including Sodis, clorine tablets and liquid chlorine. Besides this the intervention also wants to explore the possibilities to convert this intervention in a full-fledged subsection approach to ensure the regular delivery system of POU devices. The intervention will generate direct employment for about 100 Micro Distributors appointed in the project and cover a population of around One lack and twentyfive thousand of poor urban families. The project is based on the approach of social marketing.We have developed 20 minuets behavior change program and contribute on the same.Environmentally Your's Dr.Mazhar A. Rashidi (Participatory Practitioner)PRATINIDHI 636/34 Gazi Nagar,Mayawati Road, Takrohi Bazar,Post,Chinhat[Indira Nagar,Sec-11]Lucknow-U.P.Pin-227105Phone-0522-2711805,Mob-9451913298E-mail-Pratinidhi1994@gmail.com