WATER ORG

The profile

Hand in Hand offers water-sanitation loans as part of the project with water.org, a U.S.-based nonprofit organisation committed to providing safe drinking water and sanitation to people in developing countries.

water.org is transforming communities in South Asia, Africa, and Central America by providing access to sanitation and safe water. Community ownership being at the heart of water.org’s philosophy, the organisation works with local partners. The organisation believes in finding new solutions and financing models, more transparency and in forging real partnerships for lasting change. The pioneering WaterCredit initiative based in microfinance is one of its innovative solutions aiming at long term success.

water.org envisions a day when everyone can have a safe drink of water.

The project

Micro credit usually aims at providing small loans to support consumption or augment income through employment generation activities. But, this project sets a new trend - micro credit for water and sanitation to help reduce the burden of health expenses through better sanitation and hygiene.

The partnership project envisages providing 4,200 water connections covering a population of 21,000; and 2,100 individual toilets for 10,500 people. About 400 direct beneficiaries, who will cover a population of 2,000, will get both water connections and individual toilets. Thus, the total population to be covered through both water connections and individual toilets would be 29,500.

To achieve this, the project envisions conducting awareness programmes on water and sanitation for the beneficiaries and the self help groups, who will also be trained in group management and financial literacy. water.org helps meet the costs of demand creation activities such as health awareness programmes, baseline studies, etc. After intensive focus on community organisation and demand creation, loan disbursements began in June 2009. For this, Hand in Hand mobilises funds from nationalized banks. As on December 2009, loans totalling INR 8.6 million have been disbursed for 1,418 water connections and 763 toilets.

The water and sanitation project is being implemented in Kancheepuram district of Tamil Nadu over a period of 30 months starting December 2008.