Rainwater for Humanity, India Christina Tang, Hong Kong

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Project Report
Goals
Through building rainwater harvesting system and training women entrepreneurs, Rainwater for
Humanity aims to improve community health and empower women in Kuttanad, Kerala, India.
Constructing rainwater harvesting systems serves as an entry point to build the FRPPXQLW\·V confidence
and capacity in project organizing. We aspire that the Achinakom Village community will be
self-sufficient in addressing other needs in the future.
Section I: Project Progress
In the semester before our summer trip, the Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design
(RISD) Rainwater for Humanity (RfH) team has re-designed a rainwater harvesting system and
fundraised $30K in addition to the Projects for Peace Grant. Three students from Brown, Eli Crumrine,
Andrea Krukowski and I, traveled to Kuttanad. RfH is a 2-year-long project. Hence, while Eli and
Andrea have returned to Brown to continue their undergraduate education, I remain here in India to
work on the project till January 2010.
1) Design and construct rainwater harvesting system
We started the construction of a rainwater harvesting system in the Achinakom Village. The system
has a capacity of 120,000 liters. It is about 9m long, 4m wide and 1.7m tall. It is the first sub-surface
rainwater harvesting system built in the Kuttanad region. After completion, the system will provide
DSSUR[LPDWHO\YLOODJHUVZLWKFOHDQGULQNLQJDQGFRRNLQJZDWHUGXULQJWKHV\VWHP·V lifetime estimated
to range from 20 to 50 years. As this is the first prototype built in the village, we documented the
construction process extensively and consulted local engineers throughout the construction. We ran into
several technical challenges such as consistent water seepages and uplifting of the system due to
intensive rainfall and high water pressure from the surrounding canals. Fortunately, no cracks have
developed in the system. With the assurance from the engineers, we proceeded with the construction. In
the coming semester, armed with a better understanding of local conditions, the Brown and RISD RfH
team will revise the design for the second prototype scheduled to be built in October 2009.
2) Track impacts: water sampling and survey
Aside from the construction, we have collected and tested the water quality from the existing water
sources including the canals, temporary/permanent rainwater harvesting system, ponds and wells in the
Achinakom Village. The result showed that fecal coliform was present in all water sources. We also
visited a primary health care clinic and interviewed doctors to better understand the local conditions of
water-borne diseases. The doctors unanimously stressed that the subsequent maintenance and health
education were keys to improve community health following WKHV\VWHP·VFRPSOHWLRQ,Q response, we
will be trackLQJ RXU SURMHFW·V LPSDFW RYHU WLPH )RU WKDW SXUSRVH ZH have drafted a survey to be
administered to the villagers before and after the implementation of rainwater harvesting in the coming
weeks.
3) Empower locals: Achinakom Village Committee and Mahatma Gandhi University student voluntary team
Creating local ownership holds the key to proper management of the system and the sustainability of

1
Rainwater for Humanity, India Christina Tang, Hong Kong
ƌŽǁŶhŶŝǀĞƌƐŝƚLJ͛Ϭϵ
Li Po Chun hŶŝƚĞĚtŽƌůĚŽůůĞŐĞ͚Ϭϲ
RfH. Therefore, we have helped our local partners to establish the Achinakom Village Local Committee.
The Committee meets regularly to keep track of the construction progress, ensure the transparency of the
financial account in purchasing materials, coordinate duty shifts for the villagers and draft the
regulations of water usage. At present, the Local Committee is composed of 7 elected villager
representatives, 1 women·V self-help group secretary and 2 ward members (local government officials),
with a charter that more than 60% of its committee members have to be females.
Initially, we planned to include women villagers in the construction so they would be able to learn
the masonry skills. However, most women villagers were reluctant to be involved in the masonry aspect
of the construction. They would rather engage in the manual labor of moving materials like aggregates.
The local dialect spoken here in Kerala is Malayalam. As none of us speaks Malayalam, students from
our local partner, Mahatma Gandhi University School of Environmental Sciences (MGU SES), were our
translators in the Village. With the language barrier, it was difficult to channel our encouragement and
thoughts directly to the women villagers. Our translators, usually with good intentions, alter our
message sto be more culturally sensitive.
We realized the limitations of us being foreigners- no matter how friendly and culturally sensitive
we cautioned ourselves to be, we lacked the language skills and understanding that the local students
have. Therefore, another major goal of our trip is to build a Mahatma Gandhi University Rainwater for
Humanity student team. The local educational system has not been conducive to student voluntary
involvement in marginal communities. Therefore, the university students here generally lack the
exposure and experience of organizing community projects. We held a recruitment session giving the
background of RfH, how Brown & RISD students have worked together to design the system &
fundraise, and introduce them the concept of social entrepreneurship. Dr. Ramasamy, Director of the
MGU SES commented that these Brown students KDYH ´traveled more than 8,000 miles to work on
rainwater harvesting in Kuttanad. Our university is only 40 miles away but we have done nothing about
the water scarcity IRUWKHSDVW\HDUVµ Due to a lack of past experience, it is extremely challenging to
build a student team here. Nevertheless, we will keep trying. During the upcoming months, I am hoping
to hire a local full-time staff with experience of working with community members as well.

Section II: How Rainwater for Humanity contributes to peace?

I define peace as living without the fear of meeting basic human needs. Rainwater for Humanity
sought to enable communities to be self-sufficient in water provision, one of the most basic human needs.
Water scarcity leads to diseases as well as mental stress for marginal communities. It usually means
diarrheal for children, toilsome labor for women and heavy economic burden for the household.
Rainwater for Humanity works with the community to come up with solutions to water scarcity.
As a young person working in a foreign country, I do not have all the answers. What I find myself
doing everyday are asking a lot of questions and identifying ways to put those discussions into actions.
Often times, the communities already have the answers to solve the problems. I am only a catalyst of
bringing those answers out into the light. ²Christina Tang