Billions more people could enjoy the fruits of the global economy, and tens of millions of lives could be saved… And for the first time, the cost is utterly affordable. All that is needed is action.
Jeffrey D Sachs, Special Advisor to UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, July 2005
You are probably reading this either over your morning cup of coffee or after work relaxing over a cup of tea – how did you make that cup? You just turned on the tap, and clean, fresh water came flowing out immediately. For women like Karuppi, living in rural India, the situation isn’t so easy. I am writing to ask for your support to allow us to help women just like Karuppi. But first, let me tell you her story…
 Karuppi Kumbiah is 70 years old and a grandmother to nine children. She lives in a small village close to Tuticorin in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu. She explained the change in her family’s life since Jeevika Trust, with the help of our partner organisation, SCAD, helped to restore a traditional ‘rainwater-harvesting’ reservoir in her village.
She says: ‘Before we had our own pond we had to travel to the next village for our water. It was a 3km journey which was exhausting in the heat. Once you get older like me, you can’t carry heavy pans of water back from that distance.
‘I would have to pay to take the bus. The bus would be half full of people and half full of pots and pans for the water. It cost me 3 rupees for the return journey and 2 rupees to take my water pot on board. It was eating my money.’
Karuppi now has a large source of clean water on her doorstep. ‘I’m so happy that we have our own water. Everything is different. My family can collect household water and wash themselves whenever they need to.’ |
Jeevika Trust is committed to helping even more women, their families and their communities, just as we have helped Karuppi and her village.
Please help us to do this.
We are offering you an opportunity to join Jeevika Trust’s ‘Friends of Jeevika’, a group of people who understand that a small amount, given regularly by many people, can accomplish great things! We are looking for supporters who are willing to give between £5 and £25 or even more per month. This will go a long way to providing women and their families across India with the gift of independence. The security of long-term funding will allow us to plan for our future, to plan more projects to help more women in India.
Setting up your regular donation is very simple. All you need to do is fill in our Regular Donation Form, return it to us and we will do the rest. Alternatively you can set up your gift online.
£25 a month over a year could… organise a Health & Hygiene Awareness-raising Campaign to reach 2,000 villagers to help them better understand how to prevent water-borne diseases, particularly gastro-enteritis and diarrhoea which are responsible for a large numbers of deaths amongst children and the elderly.
£15 a month over a year could… help 200 school pupils benefit from planting trees and creating kitchen gardens in the school grounds. Any vegetables they produce will go to their school lunches and improve their nutritional intake.
£5 a month over a year could… provide three villagers with masonry skills and tools to help build household lavatories which will improve health and hygiene for families.
I do hope that we’ll hear from you soon – thank you for taking the time to read my letter.
Andrew Redpath
Executive Director, Jeevika Trust
PS £15 a month is just 50p a day – the amount many Indian women live on… Please help.
