Little Flower Home for Children
Drinking Water Project

In spite of some economic progress within the Indian middle class, India has the world’s largest population of abject poor. An estimated 300 million Indians subsist on or below 58p per day.

70% of India’s poorest people live in rural villages where life has changed very little over many centuries. One-third of India’s rural villages lack ready access to water.

Nationwide, 50% of children are undernourished, a higher ratio than even sub-Saharan Africa. A lack of sanitary water along with a burgeoning population translates to serious health problems for the children.

The Little Flower Home for Children is home to 210 orphan, semi-orphan and abandoned girls.

It is located near the extreme southern tip of India in the city of Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu.

As is the case in most of India, families in this area prefer sons to daughters.

This is because a son is expected to care for his parents in their old age whereas daughters will require an expensive dowry when they marry. In the poorer families a first daughter is usually tolerated but second and third daughters are sometimes killed in infancy, abandoned or given to an orphanage to look after. It is an enormous problem with deep cultural roots that India must someday aggressively address. But the current consequence of this ill-informed attitude is a plethora of unwanted girls that fill children’s homes like Little Flower.

The orphanage is situated in a large compound that includes a day school for 3,400 children. The Little Flower School was constructed 50 years ago and the children’s home followed five years later. The school and orphanage are administered by the Immaculate Heart of Mary Order with headquarters in Pondicherry.

Problem to be Addressed:

The children’s home and school had significant water needs that the previous system was unable to meet adequately.

There are 3,400 children who attend the school along with 138 teachers and staff. Water is needed for sanitation, drinking and cooking during the day, and the 210 orphan girls and their staff need water for bathing, toilets, clothes and dish washing and cooking 24 hours a day.

The compound previously used an open well, which had been abandoned due to the unsanitary nature of this system. This was replaced with an overhead tank that proved to be too small for the needs of so many users. Water was supplied to this tank by the municipality, but flowed for only three or four hours each day. When the municipal water was available it required electricity in order to be pumped from the municipal main into the Little Flower water tank.

If there were power cuts, as was often the case, then they missed that day’s consignment of water. Consequently, the small storage tank, unreliable electrical supply and inadequate amount of water from the municipality ensured there was never sufficient water throughout the day and night.

The Little Flower administration tried to become self-sufficient in water several years ago by drilling a bore well on their property. However, the depth of the well is 150 feet, adequate at the time of the drilling, but with several years of subsequent drought the water table dropped below the level of this bore well.

Solution:

At the request of Sister Rajesh Mary, the Superior for the school and children’s home, WTN provided funds to build a larger water storage tank, to purchase a one-horsepower motor to quickly pump municipal water into the tank, and to construct a new septic tank system adequate for the number of children using the toilets.

The Little Flower Children’s Home hostel, which houses 210 girls.

Some of the 3,400 children playing in the schoolyard of the Little Flower School.

This photo shows the existing overhead water storage tank that is too small for the needs of the institution. The circular shape at ground level immediately in front of the overhead tank is the open water well, now abandoned.