Status: Completed Start Date: 2012 End Date: 2013 Geographic Coverage: District Faisalabad, Sahiwal, Bahawalpur and Dera Ghazi Khan of Punjab Focus Area: Water and Sanitation SDG Goal: 6 Ensure access to water and sanitation for all Implementing Partner: SPO Funding Partner: Punjab Saaf Pani Company (PSPC)
Strengthening Participatory Organization (SPO) in collaboration with Punjab Saaf Pani Company completed a social mobilization and capacity building 6 month long project in Punjab.
The water and sanitation project was implemented in four districts of Punjab where local communities were forced to drink contaminated and brackish water due to contamination of groundwater resources and inadequate operation and maintenance of government owned water supply schemes.
Project title ‘The Saaf Paani Project’ (Clean drinking water), included set of activities which helped in achieving broader results under Sustainable Development Goal six (then MDG).
A community baseline survey was completed successfully through which water supply schemes were identified in the underserved rural, semi and peri-‐urban areas, Identify the exact number of population benefitting from the identified supply schemes, analyzing the socio – economic and cultural dynamics of the local communities Develop linkage with the local CBOs.
The key outcome of the community mobilization process was the formation of Water User Committees (WUCs) which served the purpose of active group from the entire community and comprise of members that have influence and expertise of facilitating any initiative. For effective community mobilization which is SPO’s niche, small group meetings were held where the beneficiary local communities around the 100 water supply schemes was divided into small clusters based on gender and responsibility of decision making at house.
Training is an essential process of mobilization and education. Therefore, four trainings were organized for WUCs to identify their roles and responsibilities for smooth operation, maintenance and sustainability of the water supply schemes.
At later stage the series of WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) awareness sessions were conducted with the project beneficiaries (elders, men, women, children and youth). These awareness sessions (and dissemination of IEC material on H&H were organized for WUCs to further engage their support in disseminating hygiene message among local communities in the target districts.
Through these interventions SPO reached out to 5,429,547 persons in Faisalabad, 1,843,194 persons in Sahiwal, 2,433,091 persons Bahawalpur, 1,643,118 persons D.G. Khan with clean and safe drinking water and healthy hygiene practices in the communities.
