TPRF to Aid Installation of Water-Recovery System in India

Project to serve entire village in Tamil Nadu

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 3, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Prem Rawat Foundation (TPRF) has donated US$5,000 to provide clean water and improve sanitation for an estimated 6,500 people who live in a village in one of India's most arid regions.

The funds are being issued to the Society for Women Education & Economic Thrust (SWEET) to build a bore well and install pipes, taps and a motor at a girls' school serving citizens in Veedur, an interior village near Villupuram in the state of Tamil Nadu.

"We are happy to have the opportunity to help the people of Veedur gain access to safe drinking water," said Linda Pascotto, TPRF president. The introduction of modern sanitation improves the community's standard of living and helps to make it easier for young girls to stay in school."

SWEET Secretary N. Sagayamary says the arid conditions not only cripple agriculture but cause many schools to close because flushing systems fail and the only alternatives are unsanitary open-air toilets. She cites a Human Development Index of India survey that shows even one family that adopts open-air toilet practices can put an entire village at risk of contracting diarrhea and dysentery.

Sagayamary says SWEET's plans are to re-route rain water, enrich the water bed on the premises and provide a perennial water supply at a targeted girls school.

"This," she says, "means no girl will drop out from the Veedur Girls Higher Secondary School for want of water and toilet facilities in the school. Women residing around the school no longer need to tread long distances and waste time and energy to fetch water."

Right now, Sagayamary says, even elite schools in the region tend to close during part of the year due to a lack of running water. "It is an uncomplicated project in which the input produces direct output," she says. "The outcome and impact all are immediate."

About The Prem Rawat Foundation (TPRF)

Founded in 2001, The Prem Rawat Foundation strives to address the fundamental human needs of food, water and peace so that people can live with dignity, peace and prosperity. For more information, visit: www.tprf.org.

SOURCE The Prem Rawat Foundation