Black Molly’s Hydro Revival: Shaping a Thirst-Free Tomorrow
- Restoration Humanity
- 2 minutes ago
- 3 min read
▲ One of the last working hand pumps that needs to upgraded.
Last year 2024 was one of the hottest summers the state of Andhra in India experienced. With great sadness we reported the passing away of 5 lives due to dehydration. RH along with SFIRD responded to the need for water during these hot months by launching the Access to Water program. While this provided relief, it was by no means a long term solution.
In order to better address the situation RH and SFIRD are launching "Black Molly’s Hydro Revival." The program is named after my dad's (Thomas Malcolm Ranjore who recently passed) nickname "Black Molly."
Black Molly’s Hydro Revival project is about bringing safe drinking water to the underprivileged communities in Bapatla, Andhra Pradesh India. The project focuses on helping Dalit (untouchable), tribal, and fisher-folk populations who are afflicted by water scarcity.
Who's behind it? Restoration Humanity with SFIRD, led by Ravi Pradeep is leading the charge. They work with communities to promote social justice and uplift rural areas.
Where and who are the affected communities? The project targets remote villages in coastal Andhra Pradesh, where literacy rates are low, gender disparity is high, and there's a lot of social stigma against converted Dalit and tribal groups. These communities face poverty, landlessness, and lack basic amenities.
Water issues: The area deals with saltwater intrusion, storm surges, limited freshwater, pollution from shrimp farming, chemical contamination, and climate change. All these factors lead to unsafe drinking water and frequent waterborne diseases, especially affecting women, children, and the elderly.
Health problems: Contaminated water causes diseases like malaria, diarrhea, and typhoid, forcing families to seek expensive private medical care. Women spend hours collecting water, impacting their health and job opportunities.
▲ Another village in Bapatla receiving water in the summer of 2024; this is one of the "cooling stations" set up by SFIRD to help with water scarcity.
The Goal of Black Molly’s Hydro Revival
The project aims to provide safe drinking water, improve health and sanitation, reduce disease, and empower women and children with knowledge about water use and storage.
The plan is to install 80 hand bore pumps, and dig 15 new wells. There will also be platforms and soakage pits around water sources in order to reduce water stagnation.
Maintenance schedules will be set up to oversee and manage the facilities, ensuring longevity, sustainability and community involvement. This will include educating children about responsible water use and training women in safe water storage techniques.
We will be providing clean drinking water for tribal and Dalit villages with local community involvement. This will improve health and sanitation in target villages. It will also ensure that water access does not interfere with their everyday livelihood activities.
We would be supplying necessary drinking water sources to keep the target groups healthy and hopefully less prone to water-borne diseases.
80 bore wells for hand pumps; $220.00 per bore per pump
20 newly bored open wells; $400.00 per well
These costs include actual boring and construction costs, permits, hardware, installation and labor. All costs stated above are in USD.
As we've talked about it before, we will not be able to eradicate water scarcity, but we could at least, save one family, and/or one village from losing their loved ones from heat stroke and dehydration; simply because of a very basic need for humanity — water.
“Water is life, and clean water means health.” — Audrey Hepburn
Thank you for being a part of this inspiring journey!
If you would like to know more: more.info@rhlife.org
To donate to Restoration Humanity: www.rhlife.org/donate
Website: https://www.rhlife.org