Project Trishna in schools
It all began with a simple observation. One day, Shah Rafayat Chowdhury noticed that his rickshaw puller stopped to drink water from a roadside tank, donated by the neighbourhood residents. It got him to speculate whether the water was safe, and if the tank received proper maintenance. He then decided to do something about it.
In 2015, as the co-founder and president of Footsteps Foundation, he along with his team, launched Project Trishna. With around 30 water filtration systems in different locations of the city, the project is providing more than 1000 litres of clean drinking water each day for free, mainly for the underprivileged communities in Dhaka.
Recently, through a partnership with Buro Bangladesh, they have introduced a new module of the project to provide safe drinking water. As of now, the new module provides access to low income community schools, orphanages and charity institutions such as, Gojomohol Tannery Government Primary School, Autism Medha Bikash Kendra and Amader Pathshala, serving over 2000 children.
Prelude of the new module
When they began identifying places to set up the systems in Dhaka, they received frequent requests from representatives serving the underprivileged, to set up the systems in their schools. Many children in such communities often miss classes due to waterborne diseases such as, diarrhoea and dysentery. Rafayat knew he could provide a solution to the call.
The project has two different systems implemented at more than 7 different places, depending on the water quality and demand. "We have UV filtration systems in three schools with a larger population and Reverse Osmosis filtration systems in 4 places with lower population count," Rafayat explained. Fortunately, in the two months since the launch of the module, student attendance increased more than thirty-six percent.
The work goes on
Early this year, the members of Footsteps Foundation have been tirelessly working to collect water samples from schools. It also gave them an opportunity to review their module. During the process, they found that even after setting up a reliable system, some children and faculty members are skeptical about using it because of the trauma from previous experiences of drinking contaminated water at the school. They realised that they would need to build the trust among all community members. "We are now directly interacting with the children and also educating them about the technology," mentioned Rafayat.
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