Accepted Papers - 3.pdf - UNESCO

5.5.3 Water harvesting benefits the women
of Sanio- Women empowerment.
The women in the village are ignorant ,undernourished,
week and overburdened with farm and
house hold work. The involvement of women was
very essential to meet the gender neutrality and for
betterment of society as well as realistic planning of
watershed. There fore overall empowerment of farm
women was attempted through following ways.
� The watershed secretary, is a key position in
the watershed and the person is responsible for
maintenance of records, accounts, supervision of all
works and community related activities. Ms Prem
Lata from Village Sanio is working as
Watershed Secretary and is the example of
women empowerment .
� Reduction in women drudgery has been
achieved through water harvesting module which
has come as a boon to village Women folk.
� The average water requirement for a family
of five in Sanio village was worked out to be 233
litre /day(46.7 Liter/day/person) plus 40-50 litre for
animals. The women of village used to spend on an
average 3 hrs daily (1095 hrs annually) for bringing
water to meet the domestic needs viz Cooking,
Washing of cloths,Cleaning, Bathing and Sanitary.
� Now these valuable hours have been saved
and the women are spending this time for the
welfare of their children and self care. The
women are now happy and relaxed a lot , as water
is available round the clock and they can plan the
work according to their comfort and mood.
� Regular health camps are also being organized
to benefit the women.
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� Women of the watershed have been included
in the community institutions Viz-Watershed
Committee, Watershed association SHG,User
groups, Mahila mandal and they are encouraged to
participate and express their needs, problems and
priorities.
5.5.4 Water harvesting and its Impact on the
general hygiene of the village.
� Due to shortage of water the overall cleanliness
was poor in the village.
� The farmers were not washing their clothes
very frequently but now the situation has been
improved.
� The older people were not comfortable at all
as the water source was far away and they had
limited access to it. The conveyance system of this
module is running through the village and catering
the needs of all sections of the society.
� The scheduled caste and other weaker
sections in the village were not comfortable on
the water issues but present scenario has reversed
the situation and water is available to every body in
plenty.
� The availability of water has improved the
General Hygiene in the village .
5.5.5 Water harvesting introduced Social
changes in community
Participatory endeavour of watershed project
is to bring about the socio economic transformations
by way of diversifying hill farming for complete
sustainability. This systematic approach has achieved
the following objectives.
� The people are now coordinated and they have
developed the feeling of ownerness
� The empowerment of people has come in
decision making by sharing responsibilities and
accountabilities of activities to be carried out and
decision making process is now decentralized.
� There is a new experience of working. The
professionals and stakeholders jointly work in
problem solving and decision making processes.
� The service provider acts only as facilitator and
the stakeholders as real actors while preparing the
project in participatory mode.
� The higher values of participatory index at
different phases of project show that farmers are
taking more interest in different activities and it is