development report- three water and sanitation projects in india win online search

DEVELOPMENT REPORT 1
Made by Falco
Three Water and Sanitation Projects in India Win Online Search
Written by Jill Moss
This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
A billion people live without a safe water supply. Two and a half billion, or more than forty percent of all
people, have no place to use a safe toilet. Recently on the Internet there was a competition to look for
creative local solutions to water and sanitation needs.
Two organizations, Ashoka's Changemakers and Global Water Challenge, organized the worldwide search.
Global Water Challenge is a coalition of twenty-two groups working for change in water and sanitation.
Ashoka is a group for social entrepreneurs, people who look for creative solutions to social problems. Its
Changemakers.net Web site is an online community where competitions are held. Anyone can vote or
provide ideas and resources.
The search for water and sanitation projects received more than two hundred fifty proposals from fifty-four
countries. Judges chose nine finalists in April. Then, visitors to the site voted for three winners. All three are
from India. Each will receive five thousand dollars from Global Water Challenge.
Himanshu Parikh Consulting Engineers won for a sanitation project called Slum Networking. It involves
looking for natural solutions like gravity-based, house-to-house water and sanitation connections in poor
areas.
The project began in the cities of Indore, Baroda, Ahmedabad and Bhopal. Now the aim is to extend it to
rural areas.
The Naandi Foundation won for a project for safe drinking water in two states, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab.
Villagers get clean water at purification centers. Then they sell the bottled water within their communities
for small amounts of money.
The third winner is a group leading a sanitation project in Maharashtra and Gujarat states. Swayam
Shikshan Prayog works with local governments and women's groups to change local behaviors and improve
sanitation.
Tanvi Nagpal heads the water and sanitation program at Global Water Challenge. She says the Coca Cola
Company has given one million dollars to expand several of the proposals in the competition.
This was the first time Global Water Challenge has been involved in an online search. Tanvi Nagpal says
the organization may hold another competition in the coming years to look for other inventive ideas.

And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by Jill Moss. Transcripts, MP3s and
podcasts of our reports are at www.unsv.com. I'm Steve Ember.