Kind-hearted members of local groups travelled to Nepal to provide a village with running water.
The Rotary clubs of Portland, Dorchester Casterbridge and Poundbury teamed up with the Okhle Village Trust to install a water supply system in the village of Deuralitar in a remote area of central Nepal.
Access to water in Deuralitar is particularly difficult. Villagers - mainly mothers and children - carry water for drinking and cooking from their local spring to their house often uphill multiple times a day.
This can often take up to an hour for one container of water.
The groups agreed to fund a project to improve access to clean water in 2022 and visited the village earlier this month, February 2023, to see the finished work.
Mark Townsend, the President of Portland Rotary who visited the village, said: “These projects help to transform lives.
“The villagers really appreciate what’s done and they are keen to help themselves by taking an active part in construction, taking ownership of the project and systems.
“It is a project that really makes a big difference to people in these villages, and we are glad to be able to help.”
Much of the work was completed by the villagers, who built a large concrete tank adjacent to their spring to collect water.
As this was well below the village, an electric pump was installed which carries the water to another new storage tank above the village. Pipes then lead downhill, and gravity takes the water to a tap outside every house.
This means that people no longer need to carry water up to 40 metres uphill multiple times a day just to have running tap water.
The time saved allows farmers to return to the fields, and children more time to go to school.
One woman with heart problems voiced her gratitude, saying the new system has transformed her life.
There is also water for the irrigation of crops, improving the economy of these villagers, who are primarily subsistence farmers.
Mr Townsend added: “Thank you to everyone. We have received huge support for this project from people on Portland, and the same in Dorchester.
"We have been doing this for years it’s really rewarding.”
Every year these groups team up to provide a village in Nepal with water supply systems and have so far helped 30 villages.
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