Water for Four Schools in Tamil Nadu, India
by Peter Coughlan, PhD, Executive Director of WaterBridge Outreach: Books + Water
Thanks to the initiative and generosity of students at Holy Names University, Oakland, California, four schools in remote rural areas now have clean drinking water. These four schools are in the State of Tamil Nadu, a part of India that suffers from extremes of floods and drought. In addition, the oppressive heat of many months of the year means the children get very thirsty. Now, for the first time, the children in these schools have their own drinking water. (click on images to enlarge)
These state schools are in four villages that are a considerable distance from one another – Mullipakkam, Salavankuppam, Ellandoppu, and Arungkundram. Up to now the water that has been available to these schools has been untreated well water, contaminated because of the pesticides and fertilizer used in the fields, and also because so many of the villagers and their animals defecate in or near these open fields.
Working in collaboration with WaterBridge Outreach, Curt Degler of SAVE Int’l and Sonny Saravanan of TVO (Sonny can be seen below filling water containers from the RO system) have installed small reverse osmosis (RO) systems in each of the schools. These RO systems, which can be seen in the images accompanying this text, remove salt and toxins from the water by using pressure pumps to push the water through membranes that purify it.
