Vaibhav Arun Kalokhe - India

I am Vaibhav Arun Kalokhe and am 12 years old. I study in 7th std. of Primary School, Panoli village. My family comprises of seven members, who are my parents, two younger sisters, my grandfather and an elder sister of my grandfather. My grandfather is 73 years old, his elder sister (with love I call her aaji) has seen 75 springs in her life. I stay with them in an old house within the premises of village, whereas my parents, with my sisters reside at the outskirts of village, in the field. At the age of five, for the reason of my schooling, my parents kept me with my grandfather and till today I stay with them for the same reason and also for taking care of them as they are in the evenings of their lives. From past 10 years my aaji (grandmother) is suffering from arthritis and therefore she is bed ridden. I look after all the house chores which consists of the cooking, cleaning as well as fetching water from the water tank.

I get up in the morning at 6.00 am, prepare tea for my grandparents and go to the water tank with my pot to fetch water. Earlier, the village including myself endured great difficulties as the drinking water scheme was not functioning properly. It had some technical problem and therefore there wasn't regular supply of water. I already had a tap connection in my home, but water would never come through it. Due to irregularity of water supply and big crowd queued up, waiting for water, sometimes I had to go home with my empty pot and also I used to get late for my school. In the midday-break of school, I would again go the private wells in the fields, which were often quite distant from the village, to fetch water for drinking and other purposes. Even in the evening, after my school is over, at 5 o'clock, I had to fetch water from the private wells, away from the village. Generally, we require about 9-10 pots (100-125 litres) of water, spending 1.5-2 hours a day, for our household use. For this reason, I was not able to concentrate on my studies and also I would not get leisure time to play with my other friends of the village.

In the summer months, the drinking water was provided through the tankers by the Government Department. The tanker would let flow of its water in the well and all the villagers would rush towards the well to fetch water, creating much disorder leading to quarrels too. It used to be indeed difficult for me to reach the well. Somehow, I used to manage to make a way for me amongst all the big women and reach the well to get water.

Due to the initiation of the drinking water scheme in our village through the guidance and support services by the Watershed Organisation Trust of Ahmednagar, a new pipeline has been setup and currently it provides the whole village community with sufficient and safe drinking water. Now, with the establishment of pipeline we get plenty of water with pressure in our house through the tap connection. Everyday the water is released from 7:00 - 7:30am. This has certainly relieved me of many hardships and now I am able to attend school on time and concentrate on my studies. Even in the evenings, I go to play with my friends. Now, life has indeed become easy to live.

Many thanks to WOTR and BPR!