Feature
Qatar charity has taken many steps to make available safe water and lessen morbidity and mortality from water-borne disease in Southern coastal areas of the country. Since 2009, Qatar Charity Bangladesh has been assisting to the coastal people installing `Deep Tube Well’ in their doorsteps by which they are receiving potable water.
Village `Khalshi’ and `Shamgonj` are an example
`Khalshi’ is a tiny hamlet of the Southern District of Bagerhat, where about 1670 households living with a lot of deficiency to run a sound life. Agriculture is the main occupation of the locals. Once upon a time, it was a nightmare of the locals getting potable water in their doorsteps. Surface water or rainwater was the main source of drinking water here. Rainwater was not sufficient, on the other side, surface water was profoundly saline and polluted that causing many diseases like cardiovascular diseases (CVD), diarrhea, and abdominal pain.
In April of 2017, Qatar Charity installed its first Deep Tube Well in this village with receiving great enthusiasm from the locals. And now 20 deep tube well were available here, which impact the total eradication of the scarceness of drinking water and household needs.
Chaina Begum, a middle-aged woman of `Khalshi’, told “we are poor people, exist in a long time here facing natural calamities. Even we were used to drink surface water that was profoundly saline, and turbid.By the grace of almighty, pity days over. Now we are mitigating thirst to get pollution free water from a deep tube well for the sake of Qatar Charity.’’ we have no language to convey thanks to them, she added.
Nirmal Das, a gray farmer of the same village Khalshi, told conveying appreciations to Qatar Charity, “It is a great relief for the dwellers like me who have long been craving for pure eating water. I have to say, lack of pollution-free water, we, especially our kids, were suffering from many diseases, but now the problem is solved. Nothing can be better than this gift.”
While asking the impact of the Deep tube Well project, Rubel molla, Chairman of the Khalshi Union (smallest local government unit in Bangladesh), expressed his gratitude and told “It was too hard to manage drinking water for the people of my village. I can still recap that day when women used to walk 2/3 km to other villages to collect drinking water with a lot of sufferings. Road of the village was damaged, taken long time to come-and-go.Now we are almost free from the scarce of drinking water, and of course, Qatar Charity solved this basic problem.“
Arsenic water turns into safe water in `Shamgonj’
`Shamgonj’, is an impoverished village of Laxmipur, another coastal district of Bangladesh, 200 kilometers driving distance from the capital,where 70000 people live mostly earn their livelihood from agriculture and fishing. It was called an `Arsenic Village’due to high levels arsenic poisoning in the water over a long period of time.
For this contamination, the people of the village have been suffering various types of diseases like skin problems, skin cancer, cancers of the bladder, kidney and lung, and diseases of the blood vessels of the legs and feet, and possibly also diabetes, high blood pressure, and reproductive disorders.
In 2013, Qatar Charity extended hands to solve the arsenic problem in the village, and from then 25 deep tube wells were dug for the pollution-free water.
While asking feedbacks, JesminAkter, a young lady of the disadvantaged `Shamgonj’, told “We are lucky to get a deep tube well from Qatar Charity in front of our house which was eradicated untold sufferings for the scarceness of pure water.’’
As voiced Md. Rafiq Ullah, a beneficiary of this water project, “It is really a blessing for us from the kind people of Qatar, who have protected us from the hazards and diseases of filthy water.’’
When asked about the Deep Tube Well project of Qatar Charity, Imran Hussain Nannu, Chairman of Hamchadi (Shamgonj is a village of its) Union, said, `The people of the village Shamgonj is now can easily drink arsenic-free water, even a few years ago that was a far cry. “
“Following the spread of deep tube wells there is indeed a major decline in illness from different types of diseases’’, he added.
Total number of water projects and beneficiaries
Deep Tube Well is a significant water project of Qatar charity Bangladesh. Since it has started 2009, over the last 11 years, a number of total 19,379 (Nineteen thousand three hundred and seventy-nine) deep tube well was fitted in the coastal areas and the number of beneficiaries were 2674000. In the last 5 years, the Qatar Charity has successfully done around 15,330 deep tube well projects in different areas receiving immense enthusiasm from local people who were thirsty for clean eating water.
