<
https://www.themigrationstory.com/post/watershed-move-when-a-village-shares-a-vital-resource>
"BHAGATPUR, Odisha: The rising sun casts a golden glow on Pari Sahu’s farm in
eastern India, lending a soft radiance to an oversized pumpkin on a vine. A
batch of cabbages bigger than footballs bursts from the dark, wet soil, and a
pair of green brinjals peeks out from behind the foliage. A water pump hums
steadily in the background, feeding water from a neighbour’s well to Sahu’s
farm.
The farm has drawn sustenance this way for years now in Bhagatpur’s unusual
paradigm where water belongs to everyone even if it originates in a privately
owned well. White and pale orange water pipes in the village snake through
roads and alleys, connecting the water from its wells to farms and households
in what analysts believe is an unusual sharing of water in a rapidly warming
world. Equally pertinently, they say, this has given women like Sahu a rare
freedom from the drudgery of fetching water and also a steady income from farm
produce.
Bhagatpur, a small village of 135 families, is located in eastern India’s
Odisha, one of the country’s most drought-prone states. Nearly half the men
from this village have for years migrated in search of work to cities or the
nearby Angul town dotted with coal mines and steel factories. The women always
stayed back, spending hours every day to fetch water—until a water conservation
project turned the tide on water scarcity in this village and 40 others. The
villages are now a case study of sorts, drawing visitors from other villages
keen on emulating this solution."
Via
Reasons to be Cheerful:
<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/what-were-reading-spongier-new-orleans/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
