Hi! It’s Sam again, thanks for joining us in Pakistan!
We’re back at Natt Kalan, an informal school in the outskirts of Lahore. When we were last here, we gave them supplies to start a garden at the school and plant their own fruit trees, among many other things!
But we realized our work wasn’t quite done. We hadn’t solved their problem of water, and how they were going to be able to sustain their garden and the new batch of fruit trees. Not only that, but the students and their teacher didn’t have consistent, clean drinking water for themselves.
How is a student supposed to make it through the day in the Punjabi summer heat without regular access to water?
The students persevered, and we were impressed, but we also wanted to make sure they access to the best possible conditions to learn.
So we decided to drill a well that the school would be able to use, both for drinking water as well as for their garden and fruit trees!
It would be hooked up to an electric pump, with five water taps that the students could use to get drinking water, plus 300 feet of rubber piping that they could use to water their plants throughout the facility.
“The community is so excited about the borehole,” said Shamshad, one of our community facilitators, “so much so that they’ve agreed to bear the cost of an additional 100 feet and make it even deeper.”
Our budget only included the 300 foot borehole, but the community was inspired…they decided to come together to make sure it was a little deeper and that much safer for their children – and sustainable in the long term. It was a great show of a community coming together around a cause.
This change made possible by Mankind Is My Business
Meet Sam!
Sam developed an interest in forced displacement, food, and identity while working on her MA. She’s now using this knowledge to support Changemakers 365 on food security and agricultural projects across our countries. When she’s not off on a work trip, she’s busy fermenting beverages, training for half marathons, or listening to podcasts at her home in Minneapolis.
